Product Description

Late in the afternoon of Sunday, 3 October 1993, 140 elite US soldiers abseiled from helicopters into a teeming market neighbourhood in the heart of the city of Mogadishu, Somalia. Their mission was to abduct two top lieutenants of a Somali warlord and return to base. It was supposed to take them about an hour. Instead, they were pinned down through a long and terrible night in a hostile city, fighting for their lives against thousands of heavily armed Somalis. When the unit was rescued the following morning, 18 American soldiers were dead and more than 70 badly injured. The Somali toll was far worse - more than 500 killed and over 1000 injured. Authoritative, and insightful, "Black Hawk Down" is a minute-by-minute account of modern war. This story is now a major motion picture directed by Ridley Scott, and starring an ensemble cast including Josh Hartnett, Ewen McGregor, Jason Isaacs, Tom Sizemore, Orlando Bloom, Eric Bana, Ron Eldard, Jeremy Piven and Sam Shepherd.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #144498 in Books
• Published on: 2000-07-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In Black Hawk Down journalist Mark Bowden delivers a strikingly detailed account of the 1993 nightmare operation in Mogadishu that left 18 American soldiers dead and many more wounded. This early foreign-policy disaster for the Clinton administration led to the resignation of Secretary of Defence Les Aspin and a total troop withdrawal from Somalia. Bowden does not spend much time considering the context; instead he provides a moment-by-moment chronicle of what happened in the air and on the ground. His gritty narrative tells of how Rangers and elite Delta Force troops embarked on a mission to capture a pair of high-ranking deputies to warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid only to find themselves surrounded in a hostile African city. Their high-tech MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters had been shot down and a number of other miscues left them trapped through the night. Bowden describes Mogadishu as a place of Mad Max--like anarchy--implying strongly that there was never any peace for the supposed peacekeepers to keep. He makes full use of the defence bureaucracy's extensive paper trail--which includes official reports, investigations and even radio transcripts--to describe the combat with great accuracy, right down to the actual dialogue. He supplements this with hundreds of his own interviews, turning Black Hawk Down into a completely authentic non-fiction novel, a lively page-turner that will make readers feel like they're standing beside the embattled troops. This will quickly be realised as a modern military classic. --John J. Miller

Amazon.co.uk Review
Journalist Mark Bowden delivers a strikingly detailed account of the 1993 nightmare operation in Mogadishu that left 18 American soldiers dead and many more wounded. This early foreign-policy disaster for the Clinton administration led to the resignation of Secretary of Defence Les Aspin and a total troop withdrawal from Somalia. Bowden does not spend much time considering the context; instead he provides a moment-by-moment chronicle of what happened in the air and on the ground. His gritty narrative tells of how Rangers and elite Delta Force troops embarked on a mission to capture a pair of high-ranking deputies to warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid only to find themselves surrounded in a hostile African city. Their high-tech MH-60 Black Hawk helicopters had been shot down and a number of other miscues left them trapped through the night. Bowden describes Mogadishu as a place of Mad Max-like anarchy-- implying strongly that there was never any peace for the supposed peacekeepers to keep. He makes full use of the defence bureaucracy's extensive paper trail--which includes official reports, investigations and even radio transcripts--to describe the combat with great accuracy, right down to the actual dialogue. He supplements this with hundreds of his own interviews, turning Black Hawk Down into a completely authentic non-fiction novel, a lively page-turner that will make readers feel like they're standing beside the embattled troops. This will quickly be realised as a modern military classic. --John J. Miller

Maxim
'Rip-roaring stuff, with one of the most gruesome battlefield wound treatments ever committed to paper'

Customer Reviews

A gripping read that drags you into the heart of the conflic
I'm not a big fan of war novels or films but escaping from this book is impossible once you read the first page. Mark Bowden focuses on a mission that was supposed to take just an hour but instead took 24 hours and cost many lives. This book drags you into the heart of the US battle against Somali warlords in Mogadishu and and pages fly past as quickly as the bullets within them.

Mark Bowden has clearly done his research for this book - highlighting both the grievances of the Somali people who felt persecuted by US involvement in their country and the terrors faced by the highly trained elite US Rangers and Delta Forces on the ground and in the air, for whom this battle went terribly wrong.

This battle of US technological might against Somali warlords and ordinary onlookers is especially potent given recent events, and I would strong encourage everyone to read it to gain a glimpse into the US psyche. I defy anyone to not thoroughly enjoy this book!

A Modern Classic
Capturing the ambiguous horror and kinetic poetry of war, Bowden's book is probably the definitive account of combat and the experience of the modern infantry soldier. The film version was good, but the book is even better. At once cautionary and celebatory, this reads better than any novel and sears itself into the soul. Shocking and deeply moving, this is a life-changing read of unsurpassed brilliance.

Great read
I did not know of this book until the film was out. I saw the film first(which was amazing) and I decided to read the book. I found it more in depth than the film, and at first it was quite a difficult read. But once I had got into it I found it amazing, and really moving. It also educated me, as a true, honest book that was not written to send up the u.s rangers. I thought the fact that Bowden interviewed so many people to gather information to write this was really good, as it gives you more of an insight into what actually happened.