Twin Towers and Ivory Towers, 20 Years Later
In 2001, my book Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America became a part of a much bigger and heated discussion over what made the United States vulnerable on 9/11. The main argument in the book was that Middle Eastern studies in America had consistently missed the most important developments in the region. One of them was the rise of very radical forms of Islamist extremism. That claim is why the book took off.