11 September was 'larger than the atom bomb'
Mailer's BBC Newsnight interview (4 April 2002) on the September 11 attacks and the gulf between Muslim and American culture: 'Allah versus the Almighty Dollah.'
Read an excerpt (rights pending)
Mailer’s BBC Newsnight interview (4 April 2002) on the September 11 attacks, which he calls “larger than the atom bomb.” He frames a coming clash between Muslim religiosity — “absolutely foreign to Americans” — and American materialism: “we’ve got Allah versus the Almighty Dollah,” and faults President Bush for repeating the word “evil.” It belongs with his other early-2000s post-9/11 statements (see “Ruin More Beautiful than the Building,” 01.4) that fed Why Are We at War? (2003).
A full transcription, held in the working archive pending rights clearance, is at full text.