Description
Book SynopsisTrade ReviewWhile a number of recent books have focused on the rhetorics and technologies of homeland security, few have so skillfully shown that the “national security state” is not just the work of politicians and intelligence agencies—it has also relied on the complicity of pundits, scientific experts, hackers, academics, military bureaucrats, and everyday citizens. This valuable book provides an insightful, blow-by-blow account of how the Global War on Terror has crept into the American homeland. -- Joshua Reeves, Oregon State University
We live in an era of perpetual war and our culture's dominant structures of feeling reflect it: anxiety, melancholy, and resentment have won out over reason, logic, and basic compassion. The Rhetorical Invention of America's National Security State asks how we got here and how we can move forward by examining the rhetorical features of America’s post 9-11 ‘national security state.’ Hasian, Lawson, and McFarlane show us, convincingly, that the state that we’ve created can be challenged, modified, and recreated. -- Paul Achter, University of Richmond
Table of ContentsChapter One: The Rhetorical Origins of America’s National Security State Chapter Two: Military “Science” and the Legitimation of Preventive War, Mass Surveillance, and Kill/Capture Counterterrorism Chapter Three: The Department of Defense, the CIA, and the Legitimation of America’s “Enhanced Interrogation Techniques” Chapter Four: Remembering the Rise of America’s Special Forces and the Rhetorical Force Behind the Navy SEAL’s raid on Bin Laden’s Abbottabad Chapter Five: Cyber War, Threat Inflation, and the Securitization of Everyday Life Chapter Six: The “Stress” of Remotely Pilot Aircraft Crews and the Biopolitical Normalization of America’s “Precise” Drone Attacks Overseas Chapter Seven: Edward Snowden, Agent Provocateur, and Overreactions of the NSA Chapter Eight: Anticipating the Future Rhetorical Trajectories of America’s National Security State
