Black Hawk Down

by Mark Bowden

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Military Fiction, War, Military History, Africa, Historical

571 pages, Paperback

First published February 10, 1999

About the author

Mark Bowden is an American journalist and writer. He is a former national correspondent and longtime contributor to The Atlantic. Bowden is best known for his book Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War (1999) about the 1993 U.S. military raid in Mogadishu, which was later adapted into a motion picture of the same name that received two Academy Awards.
Bowden is also known for the books Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw (2001), about the efforts to take down Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, and Hue 1968, an account of the Battle of Huế.