Shell Shocked

What is it that leaves us shell shocked in the face of the massacres carried out in New York on 9/11 or in Paris on 13 November 2015? How are we to explain the intensity of the reaction to the attacks on Charlie Hebdo? Answering these questions involves trying to understand what a society goes through when it is subjected to the ordeal of terrorist attacks. And it impels us to try to explain why millions of people feel so concerned and shaken by them, even when they do not have a direct connection with any of the victims.

 In Shell Shocked, sociologist Gérôme Truc sheds new light on these events, returning to the ways in which ordinary individuals lived through and responded to the attacks of 9/11, of 11 March 2004 in Madrid and 7 July 2005 in London. Analysing political language and media images, demonstrations of solidarity and minutes of silence, as well as the tens of thousands of messages addressed to the victims, his investigation brings about the complexity of our feelings about the Islamists' attacks. It also uncovers the sources of the solidarity that, in our individualistic societies, ultimately finds expression in the first person singular rather than the first person plural: 'I am Charlie', 'I am Paris.

' This timely and path-breaking book will appeal to students and scholars in sociology and politics and to anyone interested in understanding the impact of terrorism in contemporary societies.

Review

"Truc's hermeneutic powers are extraordinary. He reveals the post-hoc framing process that transformed 9/11 from an event into a structure in the American and European collective consciousness.

  For example, he relates the immediate attribution of the "war" frame to deep collective memories in the U.S. about Pearl Harbor, and he relativizes European understandings of subsequent terrorist events in the same way, demonstrating that they are interpretations based on analogical reasoning rather than explanations based on real experience. This book deserves to be read and discussed widely."Jeffrey C. Alexander, Yale University Truc has provided a fascinating examination of a previously neglected area in which his penetrating intellectual insight and scholarly commentary will no doubt be much in demand following any future research he initiates “Sociology has an important contribution to make in helping us understand the impact of and social responses to terrorism in contemporary societies.

 Shell Shocked provides just such a contribution.”Dr Anne Eyre, The Sociological Review“Truc has provided a fascinating examination of a previously neglected area in which his penetrating intellectual insight and scholarly commentary will no doubt be much in demand following any future research he initiates.”The Muslim World Book Review