Until the Fires Stopped Burning

This is the only work on 9/11 to describe people's experiences in depth while at the same time providing a broad sense of the human impact of the whole event. -- Robert Lifton, author of Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima Charles B. Strozier has crafted a unique and powerful blend of shattering personal narratives and thoughtful analysis. Anyone who wonders what 9/11 was like for those who experienced it up close will find Strozier's work the necessary reference. No other author possesses his blend of psychological insight, cultural and historical perspective, and narrative fluency. The intimately personal and profoundly historical mingle to produce a profound understanding of the human and cultural impact of the day America changed forever. -- James W. Jones, author of Blood That Cries Out from the Earth: The Psychology of Religious Terrorism This book offers a way of understanding--of taking measure, of coming to terms with--a thing that does not lend itself to any other kind of telling. That's why it is special. It issues from a richly layered mind. -- Kai Erikson, author of A New Species of Trouble: Explorations in Disaster, Trauma, and Community Strozier has given us a whole, complex view of 9/11 in a way no other book has. He blends historical, clinical, cultural, and personal perspectives in order to conceptualize how and why 9/11 changed American history. It is a book every American should read. -- Peter Balakian, author of Black Dog of Fate: A Memoir The atrocity of 9/11 did not burn and bury as many as the Holocaust, nor did it hit with the massive force of Hiroshima's black rain and wind, but Until the Fires Stopped Burning shows how these two horrors took part to produce a psychological and political tsunami that shook America to its core and continues to change the world. In the spirit of John Hersey's Hiroshima and Elie Weisel's Night, but with the rigor of a scientist, historian, and psychotherapist, Strozier tells a gripping and honest tale. The mostly ordinary people of this book, who happened upon an extraordinary event, did not encounter ordinary, plain death. They saw instead an apocalyptic landscape of vast, collective suffering closer to the end of the world. Yet this book also offers a heartening apologue of healing and recovery among the fellowship of New Yorkers. -- Scott Atran, author of Talking to the Enemy: Faith, Brotherhood, and the (Un)Making of Terrorists Until the Fires Stopped Burning not only captures the experience of 9/11 as it unfolded that day for responders like myself who survived but also captures the psychological experience of those for whom every day since has been 9/11-like in its power over their lives. -- Tom Ryan, Fire Department of New York (RET) ...Strozier's intimate yet comprehensive, visceral, and intellectual dissection of 10 years of trauma, fear, and recovery is full of pain and mystery, radiance and strength.BOOKLIST BOOKLIST 9/1/2011