Out of the Blue: A Narrative of September 11, 2001 - Hardcover

Bernstein, Richard; The New York Times

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0805072403 ISBN 13: 9780805072402

Verlag: Times Books, 2002

Inhaltsangabe

A gripping and authoritative account of the September 11th attack, its historical roots, and its aftermath

Few news stories in recent memory have commanded as much attention as the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but no news organization rivaled The New York Times for its comprehensive, resourceful, in-depth, and thoughtful coverage. This effort may well emerge as the finest hour in the paper's distinguished 150-year history.

In an unprecedented commitment, the Times assigned one of its most skilled reporters, Richard Bernstein, to turn the newspaper's brilliant and incisive reporting into a riveting narrative of September 11th. Following the lives of heroes, victims, and terrorists, Bernstein weaves a complex tale of a multitude of lives colliding in conflagration on that fateful morning. He takes us inside the Al Qaeda organization and the lives of the terrorists, from their indoctrination into radical Islam to the harrowing moments aboard the aircraft as they raced toward their terrible destiny. We meet cops and firefighters, and become intimate with some of the Trade Center workers who were lost on that day. We follow the lives of the rest of America-ordinary citizens and national leaders alike-in the hours and days after the attack.

Finally, Bernstein chronicles the nation's astonishing response in the aftermath.
No account of this singular moment in American history will be as sharp, readable, and authoritative as Out of the Blue.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

In twenty years with The New York Times, Richard Bernstein has served as bureau chief at the United Nations and in Paris, as national cultural reporter, and currently as a daily book critic. Before that, he was the Beijing bureau chief for Time magazine. He has written five books, including The Coming Conflict with China (with Ross H. Munro) and, most recently, Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment. He lives in New York City.

Howell Raines is executive editor of The New York Times.

Rezensionen

New York Times veteran Bernstein takes on the demanding job of transforming the paper's reportage on September 11 into a seamless narrative.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Veteran Times reporter and book critic Bernstein has drawn on the newspaper's staff reporting of the terrible events of September 11 to create an account that stands out for its poignancy and humanity. Focusing on the personal the victims, the perpetrators and heroes whose lives became tangled in catastrophe the book goes behind the scenes to explore the ways in which so many lives were irrevocably changed. The personal vignettes are emotional without being maudlin, informative without being polemical. We get, for instance, the stunning moment, described with admirable understatement, when Joe Disorbo at the World Trade Center, who "had been too busy surviving to contemplate the scope of the disaster... realized that he was staring into a dusty vacant sky. 'Where's the building?' he asked, not quite believing the evidence of his eyes." But the book doesn't stop at the personal. It uses these stories as a jumping-off point for a comprehensive look at the terror attacks the reactions of New Yorkers, the nation and the world; the criticism of U.S. government agencies; the lingering effects of the tragedy. While some of this information has been published elsewhere, it has not been gathered so comprehensively nor has it been written so well. This powerful account deserves to be a bestseller. (Sept. 11)
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

*Starred Review* Bernstein, a veteran New York Times reporter, correspondent, and critic, as well as the author of five previous books, enlists the aid of the newspaper staff (and utilizes fully credited work by reporters at other news organizations) to prepare this amazingly comprehensive account of September 11. Bernstein's story is not only about the victims, the rescuers, and their families but also about the 19 Arab men who hijacked the planes (with particular focus placed on the group's probable leader, Mohammed Atta). And the knowledgeably told story also includes discussion of the personality and motives of Osama bin Laden. Bernstein castigates a sloppy FBI for its intelligence failures, particularly when it came to the prevention of "elements of a foreign army plant[ing] themselves on American soil with the intention of doing the country harm." Readers will follow the "hatching" of the hijacking plan, in both Afghanistan and Hamburg, Germany, with absolute absorption, and they will realize that the terrorists were banking on the fact that "over more than twenty years of terrorist assaults on the United States, no administration had ever found a strong, effective response." This book is a graphic, reliable weaving together of all facets of the national cataclysm. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

By the night of September 10, all nineteen men were in their final staging areas -- at hotels in Newark, in Maryland, in Boston, and in Portland, Maine. They had a final sheet of instructions provided by Atta that told them what they were supposed to do in their final night on earth. They were to shave excess hair from their bodies. They were to read al-Tawba and Anfal, the traditional war chapters in the Koran and to reflect on the things that God has promised the martyrs. "Remind your soul to listen and obey," the instructions read. "And remember that you will face decisive situations that might prevent you from one hundred percent obedience, so tame your soul, purify, convince it, make it understand, and incite it."

Probably the men read those paragraphs and reflected on the magnificent deeds they would accomplish for the sake of God and His glory the next morning. Still, there is an almost poignant gesture by one of them, Ziad Jarrah, the young Lebanese who had asked his parents for $700 so he could have some fun. Early on the morning of September 11 he called his girlfriend in Germany. Later she told police that he sounded normal. He said that he loved her.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Times Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2002
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0805072403
• ISBN 13: 9780805072402
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: GS1 Slovakia; https://www.gs1sk.org; ; Nantersk� 23; Žilina; 010 08; Slowakei