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The Looming Tower |
| Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 |
by Lawrence Wright
ISBN: 037541486X
Pub. Date: August 2006
ISBN-13: 9780375414862
Format: Hardcover, pp. 480
Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
Sales Rank: 165
List Price: $27.95
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| The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright, 037541486X |
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A sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking
look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans and the Western intelligence
failures that culminated in the assault on America. Lawrence Wright†s
remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews
that he conducted in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan,
England, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States.
The Looming Tower achieves an unprecedented level of intimacy and insight by
telling the story through the interweaving lives of four men: the two leaders
of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri; the FBI†s counterterrorism
chief, John O†Neill; and the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki
al-Faisal.
As these lives unfold, we see revealed: the crosscurrents of modern Islam that
helped to radicalize Zawahiri and bin Laden . . . the birth of al-Qaeda and its
unsteady development into an organization capable of the American embassy
bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the attack on the USS Cole . . . O†Neill†s
heroic efforts to track al-Qaeda before 9/11, and his tragic death in the World
Trade towers . . . Prince Turki†s transformation from bin Laden†s ally to his
enemy . . . the failures of the FBI, CIA, and NSA to share intelligence that
might have prevented the 9/11 attacks.
The Looming Tower broadens and deepens our knowledge of these signal events by
taking us behind the scenes. Here is Sayyid Qutb, founder of the modern
Islamist movement, lonely and despairing as he meets Western culture up close
in 1940s America; the privileged childhoods of bin Laden and Zawahiri; family
life in the al-Qaeda compounds of Sudan and Afghanistan; O†Neill†s high-wire
act in balancing his all-consuming career with his equally entangling personal
life--he was living with three women, each of them unaware of the others†
existence--and the nitty-gritty of turf battles among U.S. intelligence
agencies.
Brilliantly conceived and written, The Looming Tower draws all elements of the
story into a galvanizing narrative that adds immeasurably to our understanding
of how we arrived at September 11, 2001. The richness of its new information,
and the depth of its perceptions, can help us deal more wisely and effectively
with the continuing terrorist threat.
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