Chas Freeman

Deng Xiaoping's economic and political opening in China. Margaret Thatcher's extreme economic measures in the United Kingdom. Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution in Iran. Pope John Paul II's visit to Poland. Saddam Hussein's rise to power in Iraq. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The nuclear accident at the Harrisburg power plant and the birth of ecological activism. The year 1979, the beginning of the future.

Beginning with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, journalist Steve Coll chronicles the events that took place in the lead-up to the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, including missed signals, failed operations and political turf wars.