Black Hawk Down, Mark Bowden
Black Hawk Down, Mark Bowden
43 Rating(s)
List: $18.99 | Sale: $13.29
Club: $9.49

Black Hawk Down

Author: Mark Bowden

Narrator: Joe Morton

Abridged: 4 hr 34 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 03/01/1999


Synopsis

Ninety-nine elite American soldiers are trapped in the middle of a hostile city. As night falls, they are surrounded by thousands of enemy gunmen: Their wounded are bleeding to death. Their ammunition and supplies are dwindling. This is the story of how they got there -- and how they fought their way out.
This is the story of war.
Black Hawk Down drops you into a crowded marketplace in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia with the U.S. Special Forces -- and puts you in the middle of the most intense firefight American soldiers have fought since the Vietnam War.
Late in the afternoon of Sunday, October 3, 1993, the soldiers of Task Force Ranger were sent on a mission to capture two top lieutenants of a renegade 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 locked in a desperate struggle to kill or be killed.
When the unit was finally rescued the following morning, eighteen American soldiers were dead and dozens more badly injured. The Somali toll was far worse: more than five hundred killed and over a thousand wounded. Award-winning literary journalist Mark Bowden's dramatic narrative captures this harrowing ordeal through the eyes of the voting men who fought that day. He draws on his extensive interviews of participants from both sides -- as well as classified combat video and radio transcripts -- to bring their stories to life.
Authoritative, gripping, and insightful, Black Hawk Down is a riveting look at the terror and exhilaration of combat, destined to become a classic of war reporting.

About Mark Bowden

Mark Bowden is the author of Road Work, Finders Keepers, Killing Pablo, Black Hawk Down (nominated for a National Book Award), Bringing the Heat, and Doctor Dealer. He reported at The Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty years and is a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. He lives in the Philadelphia area.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Persephone's Pomegranate on February 14, 2023

And the armada launched, lifting off from the shabby airport by the sea into an embracing blue vista of sky and Indian Ocean. They eased out across a littered strip of white sand and moved low and fast over running breakers that formed faint crests parallel to the shore. In close formation the......more

Goodreads review by Will on April 12, 2017

The book describes, from the ground up, a US attack on the part of Mogadishu controlled by Somali military commander Mohamed Aidid, after Aidid had attacked a UN peacekeeping force. They had intended to grab some of his lieutenants (it is unclear to me if they intended to grab Aidid) himself, an att......more

Goodreads review by Supratim on November 17, 2018

I am giving the book a rating of 4.5! I have played the computer game, watched the movie at least a couple of times, and finally got the chance to read the book. Trust me, the book is so much better. This is not just a booklover speaking – the movie was really good, but the book does a much better jo......more

Goodreads review by Pramod on June 29, 2015

If 'Black Hawk Down' was a war novel, it would definitely have a place among the very best of that genre. Written with such intensity, this military history volume by journalist Mark Bowden, brilliantly captures every minute moments from one of the longest modern day infantry engagements. When Ameri......more

Goodreads review by Joni on January 12, 2012

Okay, first of all, I am not usually the person that likes "war" type books. But, I have wanted to read this book for awhile. I remember when this actually happened, but being a freshman in high school, I had bigger things going on... Throughout this book, I kept asking myself "who are these guys??"......more


Quotes

The New York Observer Black Hawk Down ranks as one of the best books ever written about infantry combat.