For twenty years after September 11, the war on terror has been both everywhere and nowhere. With all military violence happening overseas, Americans found themselves living in two worlds simultaneously. In one, soldiers were fighting abroad so that nothing at home needed to change. In the other, life in the United States took all forms that were not usual, altering their sense of self, their neighbors, and the strangers sitting next to them on airplanes.
In a captivating and exhaustive report on the meaning of America in the twenty-first century, Richard Beck offers an impressive exploration of the transformation of American life by war. He describes the sports facilities that were reinforced to resemble military bases. The rising sales of firearms, SUVs, and trucks. The racism and xenophobia, the undermining of free speech, and the normalization of mass surveillance. Beck asks why Americans who justified the worst abuses of the war on terror also had the easiest self-understanding as patriots. The war fueled a culture of impunity, he argues, which peaked with the rise of Trump to power. To see America through the lens of Homeland is to understand the country like never before.
Pages: 592, Year of Publication: 0701, Dimensions: 15.3x15.3cm
