“It is often said that we are better understood by those who, so to speak, stand outside our world, and perhaps it is his very Englishness which enables Michael Northcott to help Americans know themselves better than we know ourselves. ‘An Angel Directs the Storm’ is a remarkable book, which draws on the apocalyptic veracity of the gospels to refute the false and dangerous apocalypticism of the American empire. The author's extraordinary erudition, and the breadth of his reading, are easy to overlook, because his impressive theological analysis of the American response to 9/11 is written with verve and apparent ease. I would hope that this book will be read widely, in both Great Britain and America. It shows with skill and perspicuity that the nature of the US reaction to 9/11 had been long prefigured by the American subversion of Christianity. Because of its robust argument, some readers may be tempted to dismiss the book as being simply anti-American. The would be unfair to Northcott's achievement, because ‘An Angel Directs the Storm’ is a mature, historically-informed and passionate analysis of the current American psyche, that tells Americans things about America of which they urgently need to take heed..” — Stanley M Hauerwas
ISBN: 9781850434788 (2004) 220pp