Product Description

This work seeks to answer the question that arose in the aftermath of the 11th September terrorist attacks on America: "How did this happen?" The contributors examine the motives and actions of the terrorists, the status of the US military, the context of the Middle East, airport security, and diplomatic pressures. the book provides readers with an accessible account of the issues that led to the crisis - not as a symposium of opinion, but as a series of narratives on different aspects of the situation.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1072190 in Books
• Published on: 2001-12-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

From the Publisher
PublicAffairs Ltd is both a nonfiction publishing house and a tribute to the standards, values, and flair of three persons who have served as mentors to countless reporters, writers, editors, and book people of all kinds, including me.

I. F. Stone, proprietor of I. F. Stone's Weekly, combined a commitment to free speech with entrepreneurial zeal and reporting skill and became one of the great independent journalists in American history. At the age of eighty, Izzy published The Trial of Socrates, which was a national bestseller. He wrote the book after he taught himself ancient Greek.

Benjamin C. Bradlee was for nearly thirty years the charismatic editorial leader of The Washington Post. It was Ben who gave The Post the range and courage to pursue such historic issues as Watergate. He supported his reporters with a tenacity that made them fearless, and it is no accident that so many became authors of influential, bestselling books.

Robert L. Bernstein, the chief executive of Random House for more than a quarter century, guided one of the nation's premier publishing houses. Bob was personally responsible for many books of political dissent and argument that challenged tyranny around the globe. He is also the founder and was the long-time chair of Human Rights Watch, one of the most respected human rights organisations in the world.

For fifty years, the banner of Public Affairs Press was carried by its owner, Morris B. Schnapper, who published Gandhi, Nasser, Toynbee, Truman, and about 1,500 other authors. In 1983 Schnapper was described by The Washington Post as "a redoubtable gadfly." His legacy will endure in the books to come.

Peter Osnos, Publisher

About the Author
Strobe Talbott is a former Time magazine foreign-affairs columnist and Deputy Secretary of State, and is now director of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.

Nayan Chanda, an acclaimed author and journalist, is former editor of the Far East Economic Review, and is now the director of publications at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization.

Customer Reviews

Some interesting think pieces on policy issues post 11 Sep
This book is a collection of think pieces in the form of essays covering a whole raft of policy issues raised by the 11 September attacks on the Twin Towers and Pentagon. It has been put together by the editing team from the prestigious Foreign Affairs magazine, and the essay writers are mainly well known contributors to that publication. The essayists vary from academics such as Karen Armstrong and Walter Laqueur, to diplomats, politicians, journalists and editors (some of the better contributions), and the former military man (Wesley Clark who as SACEUR ran the Kosovo bombing campaign).

This book was put together at fairly short notice, and unfortunately this is reflected in the variable quality of the essays, and the particular hobby horses put forward by the writers. It is also written very much from the American perspective. Some pieces work well, others less so. However, there is a good spread of ideas on policy issues ranging from the military and diplomatic to what the US needs to do with the public health system to get work done effectively on the bioterrorist menace.

This book will appeal more to the specialist working in this area, and in particular to policy makers and politicians, though there is also enough to attract any general reader interested in the impact of the 11 September attacks.