ABSTRACT
The attacks of September 11, 2001, were abhorrent to modern civilized life. 1 Yet moral condemnation does not provide adequate grounds for understanding the struggle between Al Qa’ida and the U.S.-led coalition. Those who planned and carried out the attacks succeeded, probably more than they anticipated, in altering political agendas, economic realities, and social life around the globe. With the military actions against the agents and sponsors of terrorist, rebel, and state violence in Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Philippines, Iraq, and elsewhere; the seemingly interminable conflict in Israel and Palestine; and the obliquely linked rumblings of war in Syria, Iran, and North Korea, global history is taking a sharp turn into a new era. Yet for all that has been written, we do not yet well understand the import of these manifold developments. In part, we are in the midst of history unfolding, and thus lack that retrospective capacity to chart events in relation to one or another coherent narrative keyed to outcome. Yet precisely when history remains open, it is important to try to understand an encompassing historical transformation. One way to explore current global history is to consider the ways it might involve “apocalyptic war.”
