Introduction & Overview of Black Hawk Down by Mark Bowden

Black Hawk Down Introduction

Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War is the true account of a battle between American and Somali forces in the war-torn city of Mogadishu along the eastern coast of Africa on October 3, 1993. Mark Bowden considered the idea of writing a book about what became known as the Battle of the Black Sea after meeting the father of an American soldier who was killed in Mogadishu. Bowden was surprised to learn that no one had yet written a detailed account of the mission in Somalia, especially given the gruesome images—seen by millions of Americans on television news—of angry Somali mobs dragging American corpses through the streets of the city.

The battle, which left eighteen Americans dead and was the longest continuous firefight for U.S. troops since Vietnam, seemed the perfect subject matter for a book. Bowden, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, was struck by the...
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