A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag: America Today

by Peggy Noonan

For the year following 9/11, Peggy Noonan—media personality, bestselling author, and national celebrity—was in a singular position to observe her country and give voice to the outrage, fear, grief, and determination of Americans everywhere through her Wall Street Journal articles—now in one powerful collection.

On the morning of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan sat down to write and produced at least one essay every week through September 11, 2002. The candid and sometimes heart-wrenching pieces collected here are full of insights and observations on how the events influenced our perceptions of what it means to be a New Yorker, an American, a patriot. By training our gaze on everyone from firemen, the President, and Catholic and Muslim mourners to news anchors, bus drivers, and school kids, these essays depict America in all its beauty, diversity, and strength. With a sharp but compassionate eye, Noonan balances the immediacy of the tragedy with its broader meaning for our world.

At once outraged and tender, street smart and down-home wise, A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag is a first draft of history and an apt tribute to everything we lost and learned.

Genres: Nonfiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published June 11, 2003

About the author

Peggy Noonan is an author of seven books on politics, religion and culture, a weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and was a Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan. She is considered a political conservative.

Reviews

[Sara]

This book is a collection of all of the editorials Peggy Noonan wrote from 9/11/01 through 9/11/02. It was a compelling way to learn about September 11th through the eyes of a New Yorker. Instead of a normal history book where you read about the key events, leaders, and speeches, you are taken on a journey of what it felt like to actually be there. What real people were scared about and talking about and what things mattered in the present moment. It felt very genuine and like I was taken back in time. Other history books can't fully have this effect because their writers have the benefit of the future when they are written.

[Derrick Jeter]

I read these essays when they were first published in the Wall Street Journal. Going through them again served up a needed reminder that we should never forget what happened on that terrible day in 2001.

[Mary]

This book contains all of Peggy Noonan's columns from the Wall Street Journal from the year following 9-11. I believe that Noonan is one of the most talented and intelligent writers out there. She can make words sing, even while writing about political issues (that takes talent!). If you are looking for an objective view on the issues, however, she is not the writer for you. She has an unabashed conservative view and is not afraid to bring her stong religious feelings into her analysis. I find this refreshing, however, as so many other "political experts" pretend to be objective when they obviously are not. Noonan does not pretend.
This collection of columns is insightful, enlightening, and beautifully written. The only real trouble that I had with the book was her glowing analysis of the then new President Bush. Much of what she wrote about him still applies, but her constant references to his extreme popularity felt strange to read in the light of today (has there ever before been a president with such a fluctuation in popularity?).
I enjoyed reading this book, although now I am paranoid about another "imminent" terrorist attack. Noonan constantly reminds her readers that it is not a matter of "if," but "when." I'm trying to talk my husband into moving to the country now.

[Margi]

Read this in honor of the Sept 11 anniversary. Glad I did. Peggy Noonan is such a brilliant essayist. My favorite by far was From September 11 to Eternity. This book chronicles her writings that she wrote, one per week, from September 11, 2001 to September 11, 2002. Her essays make you feel like she is sitting in the room with you and the two of you are talking. That is what makes these essays so meaningful.

[Patrick]

I absolutely love Peggy Noonan's writing. This book collects her articles from September 11, 2001 to September 11, 2002, and I slowly read through it between September 11, 2013 and September 11, 2014. It is beautiful prose, filled with both lighthearted and somber memories and insights from what was going on in America twelve years ago.