Customer Reviews

The American Spirit: Meeting the Challenge of September 11

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4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Through photographs, book tells the story of the country's struggle since 9/11 to recover from its saddest day. Each photo stands on its own and delivers a message without words. Rather than focusing on sensational photos of the towers burning and falling, book chooses to document how the world has changed. Just as LIFE magazine had always done, book uses photography not only to illustrate but to inform and inspire.

Review of The American Spirit

The American spirit goes into detail about the disaster on September 11th . It goes through the normal day, and then it goes to the towers being destroyed by the planes. After that it goes to the search and rescue and on to the clean up. Throughout the book there is many quotes from different people who share there opinions on sept 11th . then the book goes into detail about the recovery of the sphere which is the only still standing structure from the towers. after that it talks about the pentagon briefly but it lets you understand what happened. Near the end it talks about how the military started to invade Afghanistan. It talks about how we are trying to stop terrorism and other countries are trying to help us with that. If you want to learn more about what happened that day when the sky was clear and there was no sound of planes flying by than you must read this book.

Life magazine always produces great pictures and this is no exception in this book. The book is a compilation of the life of America following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The personal stories are always the best to read about. There is a personal background of five people who survived the attacks and this is very poignant. One detailed a young widow of a NYFD person killed in the attack. She described the payout which she recieved as a victim as our "sad money". These people will never be the same as a result of the attack.
I find fault with this book because there is so little focus. It descibes personal stories, then goes off to talk about the ex mayor, then looks at Afghanistan. There is a series of writings in here about the American spirit, but there is no focus in even this. This is a hard book to follow, so I rated it low. The editor should have focused on one trend.

George Washington's friend, Betsy Ross of Philadelphia, sewed the first flag for N. America on June 4, 1777, which was made out of bulldog cotton. The colors: white for purity, red for hardiness and valor, and blue for vigilance, perserverance, and justice. The stars represent the states and it varied as the nation was developed.

"Just as Thanksgiving is for families, Presidents' Day and the day after Christmas are for shoppers, Valentine's Day for sweethearts, the Fourth of July is for crowds." It is for picnics with family and friends, or a concert of patriotic music, and, of course, fireworks. For some, it is a time to travel far to see a family ignored the rest of the year.

In a "patriot conspiracy" during the summer of '42, Old Glory (with its 48 stars) was on the cover of many magazines to rally support for World War II. In 2002, flags (now with 50 stars) serve the same purpose they did sixty years ago.

This photo book is mostly concerning the events of 9-11-2001 and how it affected our country. Many of the pictures are sad as that was a traumatic day for the whole United States of America. Four years later, we are still fearful it will happen again, only on a larger scale. I really think it is time to move on. The healing process should have taken place by now. There is nothing we can do to make things different. It happened -- we need to get over it. Dwelling on something that horrendous only makes life less than good. Let us remember the founding fathers and the wonderful flag which represents this country of ours on this Independence Day, 2005.

While this book was not intended to document the events of Sept. 11th, a reader would expect the book to show the impact the date had on the American People. There are a few things wrong with this book. For one, it makes an honest attempt to show how Americans were changed by these events yet, at times, it deviates by documenting events post-9/11 that had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks. There is too much focus on NYC and little on Washington DC or Pennsylvania. Emergency workers in NY share their stories yet nothing is written about the passengers aboard the planes. Recognition is given to one pilot but none is given to any of the flight attendants. It is nice to see that in this day and age, we Americans are proud of our country and are willing to defend it but what Life had failed to show was the true reason for such patriotism--we are angry over ALL events of that day Not just over the attacks in NY.