After Ground Zero
Everyday Americans and the Unhealed Scars of 9/11
After Ground Zero
Everyday Americans and the Unhealed Scars of 9/11
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Description
This first-hand reporting spanning from Ground Zero on the day of the 9/11 attacks through decades of trauma and healing offers a stark reminder of just how forcefully the events of September 11 and the war on terror have impacted the lives of countless Americans.
Mike Kelly was across the Hudson River when the two jets crashed into the World Trade Center's twin towers in downtown Manhattan on September 11, 2001. His immediate goal was to get to the scene and gather some first-hand reporting to file on deadline. But this was just the first step of a decades-long journey through another kind of rubble, through the pain left behind and the unhealed scars of people's lives in the wake of a terrorist attack.
After Ground Zero traces the lives of a diverse portrait of Americans forced to confront the pain and mystery of the terrorism that tore apart their lives beginning on that September morning. From Kelly's on-the-ground reporting at Ground Zero to Iraq, the US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to Washington, D.C. and various spots in between, the book follows a line of survivors that range from first responders such as police, fire fighters, clergy, and construction workers, to soldiers deployed overseas, loved ones of those killed, and numerous others as they search for answers, policy changes, reparations and accountability, faith, and healing. Kelly's up-close storytelling is a powerful reminder of just how impactful the 9/11 attacks were and the ripple effect they have had in the decades that followed.
Table of Contents
Timeline
The Story Tellers
Acknowledgments
Author's Note
Prologue: First Steps
Part I: Day Becomes Night
Chapter 1: Dawn
Chapter 2: Collapse
Chapter 3: Dust
Part II: Fire and Rubble
Chapter 4: Ground Zero
Chapter 5: Twenty-five Funerals A Day
Chapter 6: Let's Take 'em to Court
Chapter 7: What Safety Net?
Chapter 8: The Commission
Chapter 9: The Chaplain of Gitmo
Part III: The Remnants of Reckoning
Chapter 10: The Pit
Chapter 11: The Crucible of Memory
Chapter 12: A Law called “JASTA”
Chapter 13: Unfinished business
Epilogue: Stepping Back
Note on Sources
Index
About the author
Product details
| Published | 20 Aug 2026 |
|---|---|
| Format | Hardback |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 320 |
| ISBN | 9798216383994 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 15 b/w photos |
| Dimensions | 229 x 152 mm |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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