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'Fall And Rise' Seeks To Tell The Story Of 9/11 From All Angles

Mitchell Zuckoff spent years researching the stories of individuals whose lives were forever altered, if not ended, on Sept. 11, 2001.
"Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11," by Mitchell Zuckoff. (Robin Lubbock/WBUR)

There is a new book out about a day that changed the world: “Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11.”

It’s by journalist Mitchell Zuckoff, who spent years researching the stories of individuals whose lives were forever altered on Sept. 11, 2001, when four planes were used as weapons by al-Qaeda terrorists. Two planes destroyed the World Trade Center towers in New York City, one badly damaged the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., and another crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, before reaching its intended target.

“There is this entire generation who didn’t live through this, who don’t have any independent memories of what happened those days,” Zuckoff tells Here & Now‘s Jeremy Hobson. “Some members of that generation are going off to war to fight in Afghanistan — a war that started after this — and they don’t have any direct connection to it.”

One of the driving forces behind the book was an effort to tie 9/11 into a single narrative before it was too late, Zuckoff says — and to ensure the attacks don’t fade too far from the public consciousness.

“Right now, other than Osama bin Laden, is there a single name that’s

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