The 9/11 Wars
  • Published: 31 October 2011
  • ISBN: 9781846142819
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 736
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The 9/11 Wars

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The definitive account of the conflicts that have erupted since 9/11, from the acclaimed author of
Al-Qaeda

DAILY TELEGRAPH, ECONOMIST AND INDEPENDENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR

Throughout the 1990s a vast conflict was brewing. The storm broke on September 11th 2001. Since then much of the world has seen invasions, bombings, battles and riots. Hundreds of thousands of people have died.

Jason Burke, a first hand witness of many of the conflict's key moments, has written the definitive account of its course. At once investigation, reportage and contemporary history, it is based on hundreds of interviews with participants including desperate refugees and senior intelligence officials, ministers and foot-soldiers, active militants and their victims. Burke reveals the true nature of contemporary Islamic militancy and the inside story of the fight against it. He cuts through the myth and propaganda of all sides to reveal the reality behind well-known - and lesser known - episodes, and brings characters, voices and a sense of place to a gripping narrative.

The 9/11 Wars is an essential book for understanding the dangerous and unstable twenty-first century. Whether reporting on the riots in France or the attack on Mumbai, suicide bombers in Iraq or British troops fighting in Helmand, Jason Burke tells the story of a world that changed forever when the hijacked planes flew out of the brilliant blue sky above Manhattan on September 11th 2001.
  • Published: 31 October 2011
  • ISBN: 9781846142819
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 736
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Jason Burke

Jason Burke is a globally recognised expert on terrorism and radical Islam and has reported for two decades on these and related conflicts from the front-lines of South Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Europe for the Guardian. He is the best-selling, prize-winning author of four critically acclaimed books, including most recently The New Threat from Islamic Militancy (Bodley Head, 2015; shortlisted for the Orwell Prize; ‘A fine overview [from] one of the shrewdest observers of contemporary Muslim activism [which] draws together the strands of a highly complex reality to create a picture that is not just convincing but readable’ NYRB) and The 9/11 Wars (Allen Lane, 2011; ‘the best overview of the 9/11 decade in print’ Economist). His first book, Al-Qaeda: The True Story of Radical Islam, is credited with having changed the popular understanding of the nature of modern radical Islam. He has made numerous appearances on television and radio and contributes to periodicals such as Foreign Policy, Prospect and the New Statesman.

Also by Jason Burke

The New Threat From Islamic Militancy
On the Road to Kandahar
See all

Praise for The 9/11 Wars

A magisterial history of the last decade ... Burke's book provides much sober information and analysis of its fiascos, which are intellectual as well as political and military ... The long patient sentences of The 9/11 Wars are suffused with the melancholy of a man who has learned a great deal from long exposure to atrocity and folly

Pankaj Mishra, Guardian

The best overview of the 9/11 decade so far in print ... More than most authors (and for that matter most politicians) Mr Burke is alert to the complex, multi-dimensional nature of what he dubs the "9/11 wars"

Economist

For all Burke's ground-level eye, ... this is as much a book of scholarship as reportage, deftly analysing the shortcomings of both the bin Laden and the Bush camps ... Pacy, well-researched, and packed with telling anecdotes, this book's strength is in its detailed, balanced overview ... At a time when there are more books out on terrorism than ever before ... this is likely to be among the best, be the reader an armchair commander in London or a real one in Lashkar Gah

Sunday Telegraph

Jason Burke ... is one of the most respected and experienced foreign correspondents in the business ... A major authority on the politics and organisation of Islamic extremism and ... a talented writer with the rare gift of joining effortless prose to challenging scholarship. He marshals both talents in this latest book ... It is a magnificent achievement

Irish Times

A reader wanting a more dispassionate survey of how 9/11, and the response to it, may have shaped parts of the world will do no better than invest in [this] brilliant book ... The work of a journalist who has not only been there and witnessed, but also visited and revisited the places most affected by terror and the war on it ... The must-read on [the 9/11] anniversary

David Aaronovitch, The Times

This remarkably balanced, well-sourced and very well-written book ... will be turned to in the future ... Burke avoids all the classic pitfalls of war correspondents writing history ... [He] has demonstrated impressive expertise as a historian who has had the advantage of having been present on many of the battlefields he describes

Andrew Roberts, Evening Standard

[A] lucid, sane account ... Burke's taut, careful reporting puts back the facts that were clouded out. He talks to the right academics, the right spooks, but also to anyone willing to explain themselves, mullahs or pols or market traders, soldiers as well as generals, even suicide bombers who changed their minds at the last minute ... Remarkable

Scotsman

A comprehensive summing up of the past decade's violent events ... Throughout, Burke's concern is to insist any accurate rendering must show the murky, convoluted nature of Western nations imposing one good-bad narrative on frequently unrelated local conflicts ... The 9/11 Wars warrants great respect

Metro