Special Sunday Reading Event

Oct 3 @ 7PM

THE FALL OF BAGHDAD

By Jon Lee Anderson

For every great historical event, one reporter writes an eyewitness account of such power and literary weight that it becomes joined with its subject in our minds. Whatever else is written about the Iraqi people and the fall of Saddam Hussein, New Yorker writer Jon Lee Anderson’s The Fall of Baghdad (The Penguin Press, September 2004) will no doubt prove the definitive report.

Drawing on his endless reserves of stamina and personal bravery, Anderson creates a portrait of humanity in extremis, a work of great wisdom, human empathy, and moral clarity. He follows a diverse group of Iraqis over the course of this extraordinary time: charting the all-pervasive fear that comes from living under Saddam’s brutal, Orwellian rule, and the surreal atmosphere of Baghdad before the invasion; the invasion’s commencement and the regime’s death spiral down into its terrible endgame; America’s disastrously ill conceived seizure of power and its fruits.

PRAISE for THE FALL OF BAGHDAD:

“Written with stunning precision... and with humanizing integrity... will haunt readers even after the invasion has receded into history.”
—Publisher's Weekly (starred review)

“Anderson’s descriptions of the American “shock and awe” attacks on Baghdad are stunning…First-rate frontline reportage, full of luminous and eye-opening details.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Jon Lee Anderson is an extraordinary writer and reporter, and no one has come closer to telling the truth about the terrible war in Iraq. Readers everywhere are in his debt.”
—Gay Talese

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Jon Lee Anderson is the author of Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life; The Lion's Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan and, with his brother (and Half King co-owner) Scott Anderson, War Zones and Inside the League. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker. He lives in Dorset, England, with his wife and three children.

ALL READING AND GALLERY EVENTS ARE FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

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