Edward T. Linenthal is Edward M. Penson Professor of Religion and American Culture at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. He is the author of Sacred Ground: Americans and Their Battlefields and Preserving Memory: The Struggle to Create America's Holocaust Museum, and co-editor of History Wars: The Enola Gay and Other Battles to Preserve America's Past.

Linenthal explores the ways Oklahomans and Americans have tried to grapple with the catastrophe. Working with exclusive access to materials, he looks at how the bombing threatened ideas about American innocence, sparked debate on how to respond to terrorism at home and abroad, and engendered a new "bereaved community" in Oklahoma City itself. Illustrations.