Includes bibliographical references (p. 193-210) and index.

After the fall -- Imagining disaster -- Imagining crisis -- Imagining the transnational -- Imagining the crisis in drama and poetry.

The leading European scholar on American literature examines the impact and implications of 9/11 and the war on terror on United States culture and literature. In addition to developing an argument about literature and trauma, Gray places U.S. writing in the context of America's transformed position in a world characterized by political, economic, and military crisis; transnational drift; the resurgence of religious fundamentalism; and the apparent triumph of global capitalism.