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The author of this idiosyncratic, thought-provoking volume describes himself as both an historian and a psychoanalyst, and therein lies a methodological challenge. The process of psychoanalysis involves the exploration of personal history, but the two fields differ in ways that are important for the project of studying the psychological effects of an historical event. The methods and assumptions of clinical psychoanalysis, which entails the study of an individual life over an extended period of time, are not easily adapted to the study of multiple lives over a brief period. As the book's title implies, the author defines a period of study sharply, from the morning of September 11, 2001 until the following December 20th, when the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) declared the fires at the World Trade Center (WTC) site officially extinguished.
The author's strategy for meeting this challenge borrows both from the psychoanalytic tradition, in relying primarily on anecdotes for illustration and evidence, and from historiographic practice, in comparing and contrasting individuals' reactions to experiences that are similar but not identical. These efforts are only as convincing as anecdotal evidence can ever be, but the comparisons made are creative and the results often provocative.
As befits a work by an historian, the book includes an enormous amount of detail about the World Trade Center buildings, the events of 9/11 and subsequent weeks, and the experiences of people at various distances from