9/11 Books, Video and Other Resources

Some of the best resources I've found for presenting and interpreting 9/11.

Books

City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center. James Glanz and Eric Lipton, Times Books, 2003. The best, most comprehensive telling of the World Trade Center’s history, from its conception and construction to its destruction and beyond.

102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers. Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, Times Books, 2005. Stories from inside the towers on 9/11. Good architectural diagrams of the buildings’ structure, and discussion of the design decisions which had an impact on survival.

Messages: Signs, Visits, and Premonitions from Loved Ones Lost on 9/11. Bonnie McEneaney, William Morrow, 2010. In a different vein, tells stories of peoples’ after-death experiences with 9/11 victims. Well done and respectful of both belief and skepticism in the afterlife.

Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back. Jere Longman, HarperCollins Perennial, 2003. Does a really good job in telling the Flight 93 story, especially given its publication before many in-flight records were released.

The Book of Mychal: The Surprising Life and Heroic Death of Father Mychal Judge. Michael Daly, St. Martin’s Press, 2008. Good biography of an amazing man and faithful priest, the NYFD Chaplain killed at the World Trade Center.

The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, W. W. Norton & Company, 2004. The factual baseline for what happened on 9/11 and the events leading up to it, although sadly limited in many respects.

The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama bin Laden. Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan. Ballantine, 2011. Update on many of the missing pieces from the 9/11 Commission Report.

Portraits: 9/11/01: The Collected "Portraits of Grief" from The New York Times. The New York Times, Times Press, 2002. Brief sketches of most people killed at the World Trade Center, as published in the well-known NY Times series.

Video

Frontline: Faith and Doubt at Ground Zero. Exceptional exploration of faith and theological issues around the 9/11 attacks, focusing on people directly involved in the disaster and its response. Unfortunately out of print. Try your local library.

The Heart of Steel. Angelo L Guglielmo, Director. Moving presentation of some of the volunteer experiences in the World Trade Center response.



Online

911digitalarchive.org. The September 11 Digital Archive uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of September 11, 2001 and its aftermath. The Archive contains more than 150,000 digital items, a tally that includes more than 40,000 emails and other electronic communications, more than 40,000 first-hand stories, and more than 15,000 digital images.
 

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