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Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road To 9/11 by Lawrence Wright |
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INTELLIGENCE SERVICE_UNITED STATES TERRORISM_UNITED STATES SEPTEMBER 11 TERRORIST ATTACKS, 2001 QAIDA (ORGANIZATION) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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“A towering achievement. One of the best and more important books of recent years. Lawrence Wright has dug deep into and written well a story every American should know. A masterful combination of reporting and writing.” —Dan Rather “Larry Wright’s account of the militant jihadist movement from its beginnings in Egypt in the mid-20th century to its strongest blow against the West on 9-11 is deeply reported, beautifully written and authoritative.The Looming Toweris peopled by wonderfully drawn and extraordinary characters from Sayid Qutb, the Egyptian jihadist theoretician, to John O’Neil the hardcharging FBI agent who understood the al Qaeda threat early on. I found it to be intensely readable and a deeply satisfying book.” --Peter Bergen, author ofThe Osama bin Laden I KnowandHoly War, Inc. “Comprehensive and compelling…Wright has written what must be considered a definitive work on the antecedents to 9/11…Essential for an understanding of that dreadful day.” --starredKirkusreview “Lawrence Wright provides a graceful and remarkably intimate set of portraits of the people who brought us 9/11. It is a tale of extravagant zealotry and incessant bumbling that would be merely absurd if the consequences were not so grisly.” —Gary Sick 'Lawrence Wright's integrity and diligence as a reporter shine through every page of this riveting narrative.' —Robert A. Caro “A towering achievement. One of the best and more important books of recent years. Lawrence Wright has dug deep into and written well a story every American should know. A masterful combination of reporting and writing.” —Dan Rather “Larry Wright’s account of the militant jihadist movement from its beginnings in Egypt in the mid-20th century to its strongest blow against the West on 9-11 is deeply reported, beautifully written and authoritative.The Looming Toweris peopled by wonderfully drawn and extraordinary characters from Sayid Qutb, the Egyptian jihadist theoretician, to John O’Neil the hardcharging FBI agent who understood the al Qaeda threat early on. I found it to be intensely readable and a deeply satisfying book.” --Peter Bergen, author ofThe Osama bin Laden I KnowandHoly War, Inc. “Comprehensive and compelling…Wright has written what must be considered a definitive work on the antecedents to 9/11…Essential for an understanding of that dreadful day.” --starredKirkusreview 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 Towerachieves 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 USSCole. . . 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 Towerbroadens 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 Towerdraws 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. “Important, gripping . . . One of the best books yet on the history of terrorism.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Lawrence Wright provides a graceful and remarkably intimate set of portraits of the people who brought us 9/11. It is a tale of extravagant zealotry and incessant bumbling that would be merely absurd if the consequences were not so grisly.” —Gary Sick 'Lawrence Wright's integrity and diligence as a reporter shine through every page of this riveting narrative.' —Robert A. Caro “A towering achievement. One of the best and more important books of recent years. Lawrence Wright has dug deep into and written well a story every American should know. A masterful combination of reporting and writing.” —Dan Rather “Comprehensive and compelling…Wright has written what must be considered a definitive work on the antecedents to 9/11…Essential for an understanding of that dreadful day.” --starredKirkusreview The Martyr In a first-class stateroom on a cruise ship bound for New York from Alexandria, Egypt, a frail, middle-aged writer and educator named Sayyid Qutb experienced a crisis of faith. “Should I go to America as any normal student on a scholarship, who only eats and sleeps, or should I be special?” he wondered. “Should I hold on to my Islamic beliefs, facing the many sinful temptations, or should I indulge those temptations all around me?” It was November 1948. The new world loomed over the horizon, victorious, rich, and free. Behind him was Egypt, in rags and tears. The traveler had never been out of his native country. Nor had he willingly left now. The stern bachelor was slight and dark, with a high, sloping forehead and a paintbrush moustache somewhat narrower than the width of his nose. His eyes betrayed an imperious and easily slighted nature. He always evoked an air of formality, favoring dark three-piece suits despite the searing Egyptian sun. For a man who held his dignity so close, the prospect of returning to the classroom at the age of forty-two may have seemed demeaning. And yet, as a child from a mud-walled village in Upper Egypt, he had already surpassed the modest goal he had set for himself of becoming a respectable member of the civil service. His literary and social criticism had made him one of his country’s most popular writers. It had also earned the fury of King Farouk, Egypt’s dissolute monarch, who had signed an order for his arrest. Powerful and sympathetic friends hastily arranged his departure. At the time, Qutb (his name is pronounced kuh-tub) held a comfortable post as a supervisor in the Ministry of Education. Politically, he was a fervent Egyptian nationalist and anti-communist, a stance that placed him in the mainstream of the vast bureaucratic middle class. The ideas that would give birth to what would be called Islamic fundamentalism were not yet completely formed in his mind; indeed, he would later say that he was not even a very religious man before he began this journey, although he had memorized the Quran by the age of ten, and his writing had recently taken a turn toward more conservative themes. Like many of his compatriots, he was radicalized by the British occupation and contemptuous of the jaded King Farouk’s complicity. Egypt was racked by anti-British protests and seditious political factions bent on running the foreign troops out of the country—and perhaps the king as well. What made this unimposing, midlevel government clerk particularly dangerous was his blunt and potent commentary. He had never gotten to the front rank of the contemporary Arab literary scene, a fact that galled him throughout his career; and yet from the government’s point of view, he was becoming an annoyingly important enemy. He was Western in so many ways—his dress, his love of classical music and Hollywood movies. He had read, in translation, the works of Darwin and Einstein, Byron and Shelley, and had immersed himself in French literature, especially Victor Hugo. Even before his journey, however, he worried about the advance of an all-engulfing Western civilization. Despite his erudition, he saw the West as a single cultural entity. The distinctions between capitalism and Marxism, Christianity and Judaism, fascism and democracy were insignificant by comparison with the single great divide in Qutb’s mind: Islam and the East on the one side, and the Christian West on the other. America, however, stood apart from the colonialist adventures that had characterized Europe’s relations with the Arab world. America, at the end of the Second World War, straddled the political chasm between the colonizers and the colonized. Indeed, it was tempting to imagine America as the anticolonial paragon: a subjugated nation that had broken free and triumphantly out “What a riveting tale Lawrence Wright fashions in this marvelous book.??‘The Looming Tower’ is not just a detailed, heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11, written with style and verve.? [It’s] a thoughtful examination of the world that produced the men who brought us 9/11, and of their progeny who bedevil us today.?? The portrait of John O’Neill, the driven, demon-ridden F.B. I. agent who worked so frantically to stop Osama bin Laden, only to perish in the attack on the World Trade Center, is worth the price of the book alone.?? ‘The Looming Tower’ is a thriller.? And it’s a tragedy, too.” –Dexter Filkins,The New York Times Book Reviewcover “A searing view of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, a view that is at once wrenchingly intimate and boldly sweeping in its historical perspective . . . a narrative history that possesses all the immediacy and emotional power of a novel, an account that indelibly illustrates how the political and the personal, the public and the private were often inextricably intertwined.” –Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times “Important, gripping . . . One of the best books yet on the history of terrorism.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Lawrence Wright provides a graceful and remarkably intimate set of portraits of the people who brought us 9/11. It is a tale of extravagant zealotry and incessant bumbling that would be merely absurd if the consequences were not so grisly.” —Gary Sick 'Lawrence Wright's integrity and diligence as a reporter shine through every page of this riveting narrative.' —Robert A. Caro “A towering achievement. One of the best and more important books of recent years. Lawrence Wright has dug deep into and written well a story every American should know. A masterful combination of reporting and writing.” —Dan Rather “Comprehensive and compelling…Wright has written what must be considered a definitive work on the antecedents to 9/11…Essential for an understanding of that dreadful day.” --starredKirkusreview “A magisterial, beautifully crafted narrative . . . This focus on character, along with Wright’s five years of fierce on-the-ground reporting (he lists 560 interviewees), pays off.” —Daniel Kurtz-Phelan,Los Angeles Times “Deeply researched . . . immaculately crafted.” —Peter Bergen,The Wall Street Journal “What a riveting tale Lawrence Wright fashions in this marvelous book.??‘The Looming Tower’ is not just a detailed, heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11, written with style and verve.? [It’s] a thoughtful examination of the world that produced the men who brought us 9/11, and of their progeny who bedevil us today.?? The portrait of John O’Neill, the driven, demon-ridden F.B. I. agent who worked so frantically to stop Osama bin Laden, only to perish in the attack on the World Trade Center, is worth the price of the book alone.?? ‘The Looming Tower’ is a thriller.? And it’s a tragedy, too.” –Dexter Filkins,The New York Times Book Reviewcover “Dozens of intricately reported books about 9/11 are already available; I had read perhaps half of them [before] startingThe Looming Tower. But Lawrence Wright’s book is my new touchstone. None of the previous books led me to say ‘Aha, now I think I understand’ as frequently.” —Steve Weinberg,The Boston Globe “A magisterial, beautifully crafted narrative . . . This focus on character, along with Wright’s five years of fierce on-the-ground reporting (he lists 560 interviewees), pays off.” —Daniel Kurtz-Phelan,Los Angeles Times “Deeply researched . . . immaculately crafted.” —Peter Bergen,The Wall Street Journal “A searing view of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, a view that is at once wrenchingly intimate and boldly sweeping in its historical perspective . . . a narrative history that possesses all the immediacy and emotional power of a novel, an account that indelibly illustrates how the political and the personal, the public and the private were often inextricably intertwined.” –Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times “Important, gripping . . . One of the best books yet on the history of terrorism.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Lawrence Wright provides a graceful and remarkably intimate set of portraits of the people who brought us 9/11. It is a tale of extravagant zealotry and incessant bumbling that would be merely absurd if the consequences were not so grisly.” —Gary Sick 'Lawrence Wright's integrity and diligence as a reporter shine through every page of this riveting narrative.' —Robert A. Caro “A towering achievement. One of the best and more important books of recent years. Lawrence Wright has dug deep into and written well a story every American should know. A masterful combination of reporting and writing.” —Dan Rather “Comprehensive and compelling…Wright has written what must be considered a definitive work on the antecedents to 9/11…Essential for an understanding of that dreadful day.” --starredKirkusreview “Powerful and important . . . a history of a man and a movement, replete with the accidents of history and historic inevitability.” —Kevin Horrigan,St. Louis Post-Dispatch “Don’t readThe Looming Towerin bed. This book requires a straight spine and full attention . . . The reporting is so good that it will matter in 100 years. Wright’s determined, disciplined work has made his book indispensable. “ —Karen Long,The Plain Dealer “A page-turner . . . encompassing religion, politics, economics and more. If you’ve been meaning to sharpen your understanding of what all led up to September 11, 2001, then Wright may have written just what you’ve been waiting for.” —Tom Gallagher,San Francisco Chronicle “Brilliant . . . describes the contorted intellectual journey that has taken place among some Muslims which allows a holy book that appears to condemn suicide and the killing on innocents to be used to justify catastrophic terrorism.” —Stephen Fidler,Financial Times “A magisterial, beautifully crafted narrative . . . This focus on character, along with Wright’s five years of fierce on-the-ground reporting (he lists 560 interviewees), pays off.” —Daniel Kurtz-Phelan,Los Angeles Times “Deeply researched . . . immaculately crafted.” —Peter Bergen,The Wall Street Journal “What a riveting tale Lawrence Wright fashions in this marvelous book.??‘The Looming Tower’ is not just a detailed, heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11, written with style and verve.? [It’s] a thoughtful examination of the world that produced the men who brought us 9/11, and of their progeny who bedevil us today.?? The portrait of John O’Neill, the driven, demon-ridden F.B. I. agent who worked so frantically to stop Osama bin Laden, only to perish in the attack on the World Trade Center, is worth the price of the book alone.?? ‘The Looming Tower’ is a thriller.? And it’s a tragedy, too.” –Dexter Filkins,The New York Times Book Reviewcover “Dozens of intricately reported books about 9/11 are already available; I had read perhaps half of them [before] startingThe Looming Tower. But Lawrence Wright’s book is my new touchstone. None of the previous books led me to say ‘Aha, now I think I understand’ as frequently.” —Steve Weinberg,The Boston Globe “A magisterial, beautifully crafted narrative . . . This focus on character, along with Wright’s five years of fierce on-the-ground reporting (he lists 560 interviewees), pays off.” —Daniel Kurtz-Phelan,Los Angeles Times “Deeply researched . . . immaculately crafted.” —Peter Bergen,The Wall Street Journal “A searing view of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, a view that is at once wrenchingly intimate and boldly sweeping in its historical perspective . . . a narrative history that possesses all the immediacy and emotional power of a novel, an account that indelibly illustrates how the political and the personal, the public and the private were often inextricably intertwined.” –Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times “Important, gripping . . . One of the best books yet on the history of terrorism.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review “Lawrence Wright provides a graceful and remarkably intimate set of portraits of the people w This sweeping narrative history of 9/11 includes important new information about the people, ideas, events, and intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks, told for the first time from both the American and Arab sides of the story. |
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