The World Trade Center site is not the only memorial. Throughout the New York region there are other memorials. “Was Sept. 11, 2001 like Dec. 7, 1941: the start of America’s involvement in a global war that was already under way and in which the United States will eventually emerge victorious? Or was it, to name just one other possibility, an alarm that the country has completely misread, and to which it reacted disastrously? How can we properly interpret an event we have barely begun to understand? And how can we hope to do so on so large a scale?”