Homeland - by Richard Beck (Hardcover)

About the Book

"A groundbreaking argument on how the decades-long War on Terror changed virtually every aspect of American life, from the erosion of democracy down to what we watched on TV-by an acclaimed n+1 writer"--

Book Synopsis

A groundbreaking history of how the decades-long war on terror changed virtually every aspect of American life, from the erosion of citizenship down to the cars we bought and TV we watched--by an acclaimed n+1 writer

"[An] ambitious . . . portrait of why 9/11 is still at the heart of American life . . . It's impossible not to admire the nerve and scope of Beck's treatise."--The Washington Post

SHORTLISTED FOR THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS BOOK PRIZE - A NEW YORKER AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR

For twenty years after September 11, the war on terror was simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. With all of the military violence occurring overseas even as the threat of sudden mass death permeated life at home, Americans found themselves living in two worlds at the same time. In one of them, soldiers fought overseas so that nothing at home would have to change at all. In the other, life in the United States took on all kinds of unfamiliar shapes, changing people's sense of themselves, their neighbors, and the strangers they sat next to on airplanes. In Homeland, Richard Beck delivers a gripping exploration of how much the war changed life in the United States and explains why there is no going back.

Though much has been made of the damage that Donald Trump did to the American political system, Beck argues that it was the war on terror that made Trump's presidency possible, fueling and exacerbating a series of crises that all came to a head with his rise to power. Homeland brilliantly isolates and explores four key issues: the militarism that swept through American politics and culture; the racism and xenophobia that boiled over in much of the country; an economic crisis that, Beck convincingly argues, connects the endurance of the war on terror to at least the end of the Second World War; and a lack of accountability that produced our "impunity culture"--the government-wide inability or refusal to face consequences that has transformed how the U.S. government relates to the people it governs.

To see American life through the lens of Homeland's sweeping argument is to understand the roots of our current condition. In its startling analysis of how the war on terror hollowed out the very idea of citizenship in the United States, Beck gives the most compelling explanation yet offered for the ongoing disintegration of America's social, political, and cultural fabric.

Review Quotes

"In 500 ambitious pages of pop culture, urban design, automotive trends, surveillance metadata and Batman, Beck constructs a sprawling portrait of why 9/11 is still at the heart of American life. . . . Homeland is an expansive tome about how Americans became the anxious, hateful and paranoid citizens of a permanent security state. . . . It's impossible not to admire the nerve and scope of Beck's treatise."--The Washington Post

"It's hard not to admire Beck's ambition and the clarity of both his prose and his moral vision. Homeland is less an explanation of the precise ephemeral moment that is 2024 than an extended reckoning with a whole era of American history, one that will remain relevant to readers who didn't live through the events it revisits."--Book Forum

"Richard Beck, like many people alive today, has spent his adult life living in the shadow of 9/11, and Homeland is a devastating inquiry into the new world that day created. Many books have been written about Washington's catastrophic response to the terrorists' attacks. Beck is no less damning, but he is quieter, taking his time to tease out how endless war, moral cowardice, and historical illiteracy have clotted the capillaries of our intellectual and ethical life. Homeland is among the best books I've yet read on the afterlives of 9/11."--Greg Grandin, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America

"Homeland describes, with a beguiling mix of intellectual precision and passion, and from a novel perspective, the sinister mutations in American life induced by the war on terror. Everyone interested in the fate of democracy, or simply how violence abroad comes home, should read it."--Pankaj Mishra, author of Age of Anger: A History of the Present

"Homeland is a prodigious study, exposing how this war has permeated both the state and public spaces, all while propagating a culture of impunity within a government that has both committed and supported crimes against humanity."--Isabella Hammad, author of Enter Ghost and The Parisian

"Homeland is an immersive plunge into the icy tub of twenty-first-century American history as we've lived it so far. Beck puts the reader so deep in the action that you can hear the 'U-S-A!' chants. Chilling."--Malcolm Harris, bestselling author of Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World

"On 9/11 the United States lost its mind, succumbing to a protracted bout of hubris, ineptitude, and heedless violence. Today Americans are inclined to expunge from memory the disasters that ensued. Richard Beck refuses to forget. In this eloquent and insightful account, he tallies up the perverse consequences of our own folly. An extraordinary achievement."--Andrew Bacevich, author of America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History

"Provocative . . . an exhilaratingly fresh take on what ails America."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

About the Author

Richard Beck is a writer at n+1 magazine. He is the author of We Believe the Children and lives in Brooklyn, New York.