A Study Guide for Mark Bowden's "Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Mark Bowden's "Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Literary Themes for Students: War and Peace. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Literary Themes for Students: War and Peace for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Sep 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535819527

Book preview

1

Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War

Mark Bowden

1999

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 intensity of the battle, not to mention the human drama of ninety-nine American soldiers trapped in an African city fighting for their very survival. Eventually, three years after the battle, Bowden began working on the story. He had very little official information to work from since the units involved in the battle, mostly Delta Force and the Rangers, operated in secret. In fact, most of it remained classified. While many politicians were reluctant to discuss the action—mostly because outside the special operations community it was seen as a failure—Bowden found Delta Force operators, Rangers, and even Somalis willing to tell their stories.

Bowden's minute-by-minute recounting of the battle, which began as a mission to snatch two top lieutenants of the Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, first appeared as a twenty-nine-part series in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Two years later, in 1999, Black Hawk Down became a domestic and international