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Also by Joan Didion:

Blue Nights, November 2011
Hardcover / e-Book
The Year of Magical Thinking, February 2007
Paperback (reprint)
We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live, October 2006
Hardcover
Play It As It Lays, November 2005
Trade Size (reprint)
The Year of Magical Thinking, October 2005
Hardcover
Vintage Didion, January 2004
Trade Size (reprint)
Where I Was From, September 2003
Hardcover
Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11, June 2003
Paperback
Political Fictions, August 2002
Trade Size
A Book of Common Prayer, April 1995
Trade Size (reprint)
Democracy, April 1995
Trade Size

Fixed Ideas: America Since 9.11
Joan Didion

New York Review Books
June 2003
On Sale: May 31, 2003
56 pages
ISBN: 1590170733
EAN: 9781590170731
Paperback
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Non-Fiction

In Fixed Ideas Joan Didion describes how, since September 11, 2001, there has been a determined effort by the administration to promote an imperial America --a "New Unilateralism"-- and how, in many parts of America, there is now a "disconnect" between the government and citizens.

"[Americans] recognized even then [immediately after 9/11], with flames still visible in lower Manhattan, that the words 'bipartisanship' and 'national unity' had come to mean acquiescence to the administration's preexisting agenda --for example the imperative for further tax cuts, the necessity for Arctic drilling, the systematic elimination of regulatory and union protections, even the funding for the missile shield."

Frank Rich in his preface notes: "The reassuring point of the fixed ideas was to suppress other ideas that might prompt questions or fears about either the logic or hidden political agendas of those conducting what CNN branded as 'America's New War.'"

He adds, "This White House is famously secretive and on-message, but its skills go beyond that. It knows the power of narrative, especially a single narrative with clear-cut heroes and evildoers, and it knows how to drown out any distracting subplots before they undermine the main story."

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