“A lucid, thoughtful, and wide-ranging book…David Friend’s excellent writing conveys more of the truth of the day than photographs can.” —Garrison Keillor, The New York Times Book Review
“As I read Watching The World Change, my pulse began to quicken. This is an intricately woven tale of that terrible day, and terrible week, that is both gripping and thought-provoking. The images, of course, are seared in our consciousness, but after reading this book you will look at them in a whole new way. Much has been written about 9/11, but David Friend shows it to us as no one has before.” —Anderson Cooper
“Compelling…Surely the most original treatment so far of the cultural impact of the day.” —Frank Rich, The New York Times
“The crystalline images of September 11 soon became blurred, either by hysteria or exploitation or by a certain reticence that mutated into near-denial. At last we have a book that looks steadily through the lens and does not flinch, but which cancels voyeurism by its care and measure and by the multiplicity of its perspectives.” —Christopher Hitchens
“Riveting…wide-ranging and stimulating.” —Chicago Tribune
“Friend is always a profoundly empathetic writer, which is a tribute to his sense of proportion—and to his essential humanity.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“A reader can only bear witness to the tenderness and wisdom at the core of this book, which distinguish it throughout. David Friend's passionate sympathy engages the reader without relenting. Just about all the observations that might be sought from the events of that day are here: victims, survivors in every sense, responders. Loss, pride, a helix of sorrow and shame along the meridians of the world. Along with its records of grief, Watching the World Change celebrates the courage to go on, which may be the most admirable and irreplaceable of human virtues.” —Robert Stone
