09/11/2026
Today marks two-and-a-half decades since al Qaeda attacked the United States on September 11, 2001, profoundly reorienting the nation’s concept of security and laying claim to the collective imagination of the years that followed: the “post-9/11 era.” The world we know today – including, in the United States, many of our laws and the bureaucratic design of government institutions, along with their successes, excesses, and pathologies – was forged and defined by that event. But twenty-five years is a long time – a standard measure used to describe a generation.
At the quarter-century anniversary, the Reiss Center on Law and Security and Just Security asked contributors across to reflect briefly on where they were on 9/11, how it shaped their path, and how that experience continues to inform their work and lives today, particularly in the current moment when many of the cautionary lessons of the post-9/11 era are presented so clearly.
The result is a new collection that comprises a set of brief but rich meditations, at the same time personal and analytically grounded. The essays draw from the unique vantage points of their authors to suggest larger lessons about the force of this historical event, and how to take its lessons forward into a future from which it grows increasingly distant.
Explore the essay series here:
This week marks two-and-a-half decades since al Qaeda attacked the United States, profoundly reorienting the nation’s concept of security and laying claim to the collective imagination of the years that followed: the “post-9/11 era.” The world we know today – including, in the United States,...
