“Fixed Ideas: America Since 9/11″ is a petite edition published by The New York Review of Books, based on the Robert B. Silvers Lecture given by Joan Didion at the New York Public Library on November 13, 2002. In it, Didion describes how, since September 11, 2001, there was a determined effort by the Bush administration to promote an imperial America – a “New Unilateralism” in the words of the jacket copy – and how, in many parts of America, a “disconnect” developed between the government and the citizens:
[Americans] recognized even then [immediately after 9/11], with flames still visible in lower Manhattan, that the words ‘bipartisanship’ and ‘national unity’ had come to mean acquiescence to the administration’s preexisting agenda – for example the imperative for further tax cuts, the necessity for Arctic drilling, the systematic elimination of regulatory and union protections, even the funding for the missile shield.
This book forms part of the NYRB’s series of slim volumes on the war in Iraq, its causation and consequences, including such titles as “Now They Tell Us” by Michael Massing and “Welcome to Doomsday” by Bill Moyers. The entire series was designed by Milton Glaser, the graphic designer made famous by, among countless other projects, his creation of the “I ♥ NY” logo and for founding New York magazine with Clay Felker in 1968.
Glaser discussed his work on these books and many others in an event entitled ‘The Art of the Book: Behind the Covers with Dave Eggers, Chip Kidd, Milton Glaser’ at the 92nd Street Y in New York, December 4, 2006.
“The issue was to take a very simple typographical form and see if you could milk variations out of it because it’s all about the war and Bush and 9/11,” Glaser said.
He used a Bodoni font in a variety of ways to create the above covers, which he explains in the following video of the complete event:
Chip Kidd, another speaker, referenced an additional Didion book, “The Year of Magical Thinking”. The cover of that book was created by Carol Devine Carson, which evokes the concept of memory by subtly highlighting the letters “J O H N” concealed in the typography.
Didion spoke about the designer of the cover in her TimesTalks conversation with Joseph Lellyveld, which you can listen to here: http://bit.ly/aUlHmU
Didion admitted that she did not see the surreptitious lettering until the designer pointed it out to her, and so she is constantly amazed that others notice it without the benefit of having Carson there to provide an explanation.
“She’s kind of brilliant, actually,” Didion concluded.