Some of the finest writing and reporting on the events of September 11 was done by Der Spiegel, Germany's magazine of record. With its main office in Hamburg, base of operations for terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta and many of the others, Der Spiegel's journalists were on the front lines of the earliest investigation into the identities of those who, on a cloudless summer day, brought holy war to America. The award-winning team from Spiegel was also at Ground Zero, talking to people, gathering stories, interviewing survivors, seeking the words that might express the interconnections of horror and heroism. The words came to them -- from those who had been inside and somehow gotten out. Inside 9-11 gives us some of their accounts, taking us as close as we can get to what happened.
The "why" of September 11 may remain beyond understanding, but here we learn who the terrorists were, and how they were able to take so many innocent lives by sacrificing their own. The profiles in this book offer views into the chilling, alien mindset that has become part of our daily reality.
Combining first-class investigative journalism and writing of extraordinary clarity, Inside 9-11 is a heartbreaking and gripping reconstruction of the events that changed us all. No book can encompass what took place only six months ago. But here is one that gives it human dimension.
Jacket design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein and Shea M. Kornblum
Jacket photograph by Marc Yankus
