Jason Burke, a first-hand witness to many of the conflict"s key moments, has written the definitive account of its course. At once investigation, reportage and contemporary history. "The 9/11 Wars" is based on hundreds of interviews with participants, including desperate refugees and senior intelligence officials, ministers and foot-soldiers, active militants and their victims. Burke cuts through the myth and propaganda of all sides to reveal the reality behind well-known - and lesser-known - episodes. Events are given a pattern and relationship previously missing; so too are critical issues facing the world today: the tensions between local identities and globalization, the rising forces of Islamism and nationalism, the attraction of extremism and violence for some.