Wrestling with demons

摘要

"It is all America's fault" is a familiar re-A frain. But is it all the fault of one building in America? The supposed cosmic connection between the date of the ground-breaking ceremony for the Pentagon, September 11th 1941, and the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC 60 years later, provides the overarching theme for this rambling and unashamedly personal polemical account of America's engagement with the world. From the strategic bombing campaigns of the second world war, and the dropping of the atom bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to the present, James Carroll detects an unstoppable momentum, emanating from the Pentagon, towards total war. The author makes no apologies for his hyperbole and claims that his book is unerringly factual. But even facts need context.