In this unique book, Peter Alexander Meyers leads us through the social processes by which shock incites terror, terror invites war, war invokes emergency, and emergency supports unchecked power. He then reveals how the domestic political culture created by the Cold War has driven these developments forward since 9/11, contending that our failure to acknowledge that "this" Cold War continues today is precisely what makes it so dangerous. aWith eloquence and urgency Meyers argues that the mantra of our timeOCoOC everything changed on 9/11!OCOOCois false and pernicious. By contrast, "Civic War and the Corruption of the Citizen" provides a novel account of long-term transformations in the citizenOCOs experience of war, the constitution of political powers, and public uses of communication, andafrom that firm historical basis explains how a convergence of these social facts became the pretext for unprecedented opportunism and irresponsibility after 9/11. Where others have observed that our rights are under attack, Meyers digs deeper and finds that today OC government by the peopleOCO itself is at risk. aSparkling with historical and philosophical insight, this is a dramatic diagnosis of the American political scene that at once makes clear the new position of the citizen and the necessity for active citizenship if democracy is to endure."