The tragic events of September 11, 2001, came as a terrible surprise, except of course to those who perpetrated them. The four aircraft hijackings, the use of the seized and fully fueled large aircraft as incendiary bombs directed against the perceived centers of American financial, military, and legislative life (on the assumption that the fourth jet was to have been targeted at the U.S. Capitol), and the massive loss of life shattered all assumptions. The terror immediately produced a flood of analysis, instant commentary, articles, books, and gradually also a smaller tide of semiacademic and academic analysis.