Two Seconds Under the World

by Jim Dwyer

"AN IMPORTANT BOOK...[THAT] TELLS US WHY ATTENTION MUST BE PAID."

--New York Newsday

At 12:17 p.m. on February 26, 1993, a 1,500 pound bomb tore into the underbelly of New York City's World Trade Center. Six people were killed, numerous others injured, the city's economy traumatized. The blast took just two seconds, but in that instant America's sense of security was destroyed forever. Now, for the first time ever, here is the complete, authoritative, inside story of the conspiracy and its origins, the bombing and its aftermath. Written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists who first broke much of the story, TWO SECONDS UNDER THE WORLD reveals, in a vivid and gripping narrative, just how vulnerable America remains to terrorist attack...

* The internal squabbles that may have prevented the FBI from catching the fanatics before they had a chance to act

* How the bombers nearly succeeded in actually knocking down the Twin Towers

* A shocking examination of just how close the plotters came to destroying numerous other targets, including the Statue of Liberty and the United Nations

* How the one man alleged to have headed the conspiracy may well escape conviction

"[A] FAST-PACED NARRATIVE."

--Publishers Weekly

Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Jim Dwyer was an American journalist and author. He was a reporter and columnist with The New York Times, and the author or co-author of six non-fiction books. A native New Yorker, Dwyer wrote columns for New York Newsday and the New York Daily News before joining the Times. He appeared in the 2012 documentary film Central Park Five and was portrayed on stage in Nora Ephron's Lucky Guy (2013). Dwyer had won the Pulitzer Prize in 1995 for his "compelling and compassionate columns about New York City" and was also a member of the New York Newsday team that won the 1992 Pulitzer for spot news reporting for coverage of a subway derailment in Manhattan.

Reviews

[Michael Gerald · Rating 3 out of 5]

This chronicle of the first terror attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 is a nice read, though I have a hunch that some of its findings have already been superseded by the second, deadlier attack on September 11, 2001. Also, it is now known that Al-Qaeda was responsible for even this earlier atrocity, a fact that was still amorphous at the time of writing of the book. And now, Al-Qaeda is just a shadow of its former self due to the death of its founder Bin Laden, the decimation of its network, and the rise of another, more violent and ambitious group: Daesh. But Daesh now shows signs that it has (hopefully) peaked. No matter how long it takes, this new evil will fail.