Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It

"The definitive book on the 19 men who brought such devastation and terror to this country ... a well-told, meticulously researched cautionary tale." -- Washington Post Book World

Using research undertaken in twenty countries on four continents, Los Angeles Times correspondent Terry McDermott provides gripping, authoritative portraits of the main players in the 9/11 plot. With brilliant reporting and thoughtful analysis, McDermott brings us a clearer, more nuanced, and in some ways more frightening, understanding of the landmark event of our time.

The attacks of September 11, 2001, were a calamity on a scale few had imagined possible. In their aftermath, we exaggerated the men who perpetrated the attacks, shaping hasty and often mistaken reporting into caricatures we could comprehend--monsters and master criminals equal to the enormity of their crime. In reality, the 9/11 hijackers were unexceptional men, not much different from countless others. It is this ordinary enemy, not the caricature, that we must understand if we are to have a legitimate hope of defeating terrorism.

Author: Terry McDermott
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 08/15/2006
Pages: 368
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 9.36h x 5.42w x 0.90d
ISBN: 9780060584702

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 08/27/2006 pg. 24

About the Author
McDermott, Terry: -

Terry McDermott has been a reporter at eight newspapers for twenty-five years, the last seven at the Los Angeles Times, where he is a national correspondent. He has won prizes for his journalism in a number of fields, including foreign affairs, economics, and science.