The Day That Shook the World Book

If journalism is the first draft of history, The Day That Shook The World is one of the best first drafts you could wish to read about the terrible, perplexing and awesome events of September 11, 2001. The book is a BBC News "production" (although any profits will go to charities linked with the tragedy). As such it is able to draw on the wide and impressive skills of all the BBC’s TV and radio journalists, from Westminster insiders like Andrew Marr to Middle East reporters like Orla Guerlin. Even newscasting celebrities like John Simpson have taken time out from liberating Kabul to include their thoughts. Each journalist (there are 15 in total) has a chapter in which to dwell and declaim on some aspect of the terrorist attack and its still unfolding geopolitical aftermath. The book begins with the devastation of Ground Zero in Manhattan, trawls through the religious, economic and cultural sequel of that event and ends with the capture of the Afghan capital by the Northern Alliance. Perhaps inevitably the most obviously impacting chapters are those on the New York atrocities, like Stephen Evans’ appallingly vivid first person account of being stuck in the World Trade towers as they collapsed. Other sections, like John Simpson’s discourse on "Afghanistan’s Tragedy", are more distantly pensive and others, like Jeff Randall’s fascinating chapter on the economic ramifications, are more analytic. All 15 chapters are equally cogent, informed, persuasive--and valuable. --Sean ThomasRead More