Out of the Blue: The Story of September 11, 2001, from Jihad to Ground Zero

Richard Bernstein's Out of the Blue provides a gripping and authoritative account of the September 11, 2001 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.