October 21, 2001
Source: Los Angeles Times
On October 21, 2001, the Los Angeles Times reported that "long renowned both for collective indifference and relative ignorance about the rest of the world, Americans have been shocked out of their insularity by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Books about the Taliban, Palestinians and Islam are now top sellers as growing numbers of Americans, suddenly feeling vulnerable, try to arm themselves with information about issues and regions once deemed too complicated to grasp or too remote to affect them."