Black Hawk Down
A Story of Modern War
Grove/Atlantic · Print & ebook · April 23, 2010
Already a classic of war reporting and now reissued as a Grove Press paperback, Black Hawk Down is Mark Bowden’s brilliant account of the longest sustained firefight involving American troops since the Vietnam War.
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- Who it’s for
- A minute-by-minute account that keeps the confusion and cost of battle in view.
- Genres
- Special Forces History, African History, U.S. Military History
- Published
- Grove/Atlantic, April 23, 2010
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Start with this bookAbout this book
Already a classic of war reporting and now reissued as a Grove Press paperback, Black Hawk Down is Mark Bowden’s brilliant account of the longest sustained firefight involving American troops since the Vietnam War. On October 3, 1993, about a hundred elite U.S. soldiers were dropped by helicopter into the teeming market in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take an hour.
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Instead, they found themselves pinned down through a long and terrible night fighting against thousands of heavily-armed Somalis. The following morning, eighteen Americans were dead and more than seventy had been badly wounded. Drawing on interviews from both sides, army records, audiotapes, and videos (some of the material is still classified), Bowden’s minute-by-minute narrative is one of the most exciting accounts of modern combat ever written—a riveting story that captures the heroism, courage, and brutality of battle.
Combat in Close Focus
A minute-by-minute account that keeps the confusion and cost of battle in view.
Come here for
- Modern combat reporting grounded in interviews, records, tapes, and video
- A perspective on courage, brutality, and the human cost of battle
Expect
- A sustained, detailed narrative of a firefight
- Events drawn from accounts on both sides
Where it sits
| Special Forces History | 60% |
|---|---|
| U.S. Military History | 45% |
| African History | 44% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- African History
- Military History
- Authors
- Mark Bowden
- Publisher
- Grove/Atlantic
- Published
- April 23, 2010
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- African History