ABSTRACT
Record numbers of people in the West flocked to cinemas in the weeks after the terrorist tragedies. Among the images of the hip and the cool that Saturday was a photograph of a landing craft filled with Royal Marine Commandos outfitted in camouflage, their fingers on the triggers of their automatic weapons, their boat speeding through the open seas toward what one suspects is a foreign shoreline. September 11, 2001 arguably rendered another rethinking of US morality possible, for the events of that day shook US self-understandings to their very core: about who "Americans" are, about what "America" represents to the rest of the world, and about what Americans and America might be in this new, new world order. Theoretically, Imagining America at War is not claimi ng to be a unique project. Its arguments about morality, family, nation, and culture are nothing new.
