Just after the country marked the 15th anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, Lawrence Wright, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist known for his coverage of terrorism in the Middle East, visited the Brattle Theater in Cambridge to reflect on the path that terror has taken in the Middle East and its impact on the U.S.
"Fifteen years," Wright began, "I have to confess that I never thought I'd still be writing about terrorism fifteen years later. This anniversary has caused me to reflect on some of the experiences I've had."
Wright shared the lessons chronicled in his new book, The Terror Years, which combines ten of Wright's most powerful pieces, first published in The New Yorker. He thinks long and deep on the profound impacts of violence he observes: from the depression prevalent in Saudi Arabia caused by gender apartheid to the reflexive reactions of U.S. citizens to the blows caused by so many terrorist acts, from 9/11 to the beheadings conducted by ISIS.
"Those images, those transgressive images that we all saw on 9/11 traumatized this country, and it was purposeful. It was purposeful on the part of al-Qaeda to inflict a blow that was humiliating and would cause us to overreact and act against our own interests," Wright said.
