[.ca] The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory (ISBN 0195161076)

From Amazon.com:
How do Americans, long innocent of such things, comprehend large-scale acts of domestic terrorism? How do they commemorate the victims of such deeds? In this unfortunately timely book, historian Edward T. Linenthal examines these questions as they were addressed by the people of Oklahoma City after the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. In that attack, 168 men, women, and children died. Each left behind stunned, grieving relatives and loved ones; each left behind a personal history suddenly become part of the cultural and psychic property of the nation, as in the instance of Baylee Almon, whose corpse, cradled in the arms of a fireman, became an iconic image. As Linenthal writes in this careful work of cultural history, it fell on Oklahomans to process their grief in the wake of "violent mass death," no easy task, and to design and construct an appropriate memorial--which, after painful arguments over every detail, they did, and to stunning effect. Linenthal's thoughtful account summarizes some of the many lessons to be drawn from the Oklahoma City attack, lessons that, sadly, the world has had to learn anew. --Gregory McNamee

An academic approach to a painful event:
The 1995 bombing of the Federal Building in Oklahoma City shook the nation and produced a modest flurry of books. This late addition fills in a few blanks that may interest specialists. A life of Timothy McVeigh might enjoy wide appeal, and terrorist plots have a gruesome fascination, but readers won_t find them here. Edward Linenthal, Professor of Religion and American Culture at the University of Wisconsin spends little time on the bombers and the explosion. He has written a history of ideas, an academic field in which the books may outnumber the readers. In works of this genre, the author first asks a question. Thus, was the bombing a senseless atrocity? Or was it an act one would expect in the U.S., a culture that glamorizes violence? Having asked a question, the author doesn_t answer it. He collects everyone else_s answer, assembling page after page of quotes from editorials, talk shows, pundits, politicians, clergymen, and academics. After recording these thoughts, the author draws no conclusions. The chapter ends. Another chapters introduces another question. Was God or Satan responsible for the catastrophe? Oklahomans are a conservative people, and there is no shortage of feeling that a federal government that keeps the Bible out of schools bears much responsibility. Ironically, clergymen are far more restrained than laymen in laying blame. Mostly, clergymen admit they can_t explain it. For years after the blast, the city argued vehemently over a proper memorial for the victims. The author considers this such an important controversy that he devotes half the book to it. With the memorial complete, I doubt if many residents of Oklahoma City want to read about the pros and cons of the design. It has even less appeal to anyone else.

A timely casestudy of the American mourning/memorial process:
'The Unfinished Bombing' provides a glimpse into what happened in Oklahoma City AFTER the bombing, and details the evolution of the National Memorial completed in 2000. In light of what happened on 9/11/2001, this book provides a remarkable insight into how we as a society grieve and memorialize sites of national tragedy. This is not any easy or simple process, and Linenthal does an excellent job in explaining what happened in OKC, and the wide variety of issues that were confonted in developing the memorial. I would recommend this book to anyone considering how America should memorialize the World Trade Center site.