Most Americans were afraid, wanted to be protected, and were rooting for their government to succeed. Out of this trauma, the American public supported Bush’s declaration of a “war on terror” as a kind of blank slate, with details to be filled in by his administration. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.” Speaking days after 9/11 to an audience that included the US Congress and British prime minister, Tony Blair, Bush declared: “Our war on terror begins with al-Qaida, but it does not end there. But President George W Bush’s administration had larger ambitions. Like most Americans, I assumed my government would retaliate against the people who did this. I smelled the air, acrid from burnt steel and death, for days afterwards. Ultimately, Rhodes writes personally and powerfully about finding hope in the belief that looking squarely at where America has gone wrong can make clear how essential it is to fight for what America is supposed to be, for our own country and the entire world.As a young New Yorker, I saw a plane plough into the World Trade Center and the first tower fall. The characters and issues that Rhodes illuminates paint a picture that shows us where we are today-from Barack Obama to a rising generation of international leaders from the authoritarian playbook endangering democracy to the flood of disinformation enabling authoritarianism. Along the way, he discusses the growing authoritarianism of Vladimir Putin, and his aggression towards Ukraine, with the foremost opposition leader in Russia, who was subsequently poisoned and imprisoned he profiled Hong Kong protesters who saw their movement snuffed out by China under Xi Jinping and America itself reached the precipice of losing democracy before giving itself a fragile second chance. He visited dozens of countries, meeting with politicians and activists confronting the same nationalism and authoritarianism that are tearing America apart. “Vital reading for Americans and people anywhere who seek to understand what is happening ‘after the fall’ of the global system created by the United States” ( New York Journal of Books), from the former White House aide, close confidant to President Barack Obama, and author of The World as It IsĪt a time when democracy in the United States is endangered as never before, Ben Rhodes spent years traveling the world to understand why.

After the Fall by Ben Rhodes