After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era

Within moments after the collapse of the World Trade Center, the attack on the Pentagon, and the downing of United Airlines Flight 93 over a field in Pennsylvania, the shocked world knew that much more than the spectacular New York City skyline had changed forever. Steven Brill shows us how profoundly true that is in this richly detailed, day-by-day account of how America mobilized to protect our now-clearly-vulnerable homeland and to help rebuild not just Ground Zero, but the thousands of shattered lives that were affected by the attacks. One marvels at the extent of the destruction and at the speed of the response. However, After does not present an always-pretty picture of good will and cooperation. Instead, we are shown a year of stunning juxtapositions: of extraordinary charity, brain power, and good intentions versus greed, self-interest, and bureaucratic incompetence. "It would all make for a harrowing test of a system in which all the players in this American symphony square off in a robust, often messy clash of ideas and special interests that is supposed to produce the public interest."

Brill presents a cross-section of the constituencies that were suddenly bound together after the catastrophe and deftly interweaves their stories. The book is at once personal and public, intimate and far-reaching. However, because of its very scope, it is at times ponderous. Many of the power players are familiar--Ashcroft, Schumer, and Ridge--but it is the others--the victims' families, the border patrol and customs officers, the newly targeted members of the Arab community--that give this story a human face. As Brill suggests, the story of After is far from complete. While some of the challenges presented in the book have been resolved, we know we will be confronting many of the others for years to come. --Silvana Tropea

Steven Brill, a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School, is the author of the bestselling, The Teamsters. He founded The American Lawyer magazine in 1979, which he expanded into a nationwide chain of legal publications. In 1991 he founded cable's Court TV. He sold his interests in the legal publications and Court TV in 1997, after which he founded Brill's Content, a magazine about the media, which closed in 2001.

After September 11, Brill became a columnist for Newsweek and an analyst for NBC on issues related to the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. A winner of the National Magazine Award, Brill lives in New York City and Katonah, New York with his wife and three children.