The Looming TowerThe Looming Tower

Explores both the American and Arab sides of the September 11th terrorist attacks in an account of the people, ideas, events, and intelligence failures that led to the attacks.
Exploring both the American and Arab sides of the September 11th terrorist attacks interweaves the stories of four men--Al Qaeda leaders Ayman al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, FBI counterrorism head John O'Neill, and Prince Turki al-Faisal, former chief of Saudi intelligence--in the story of the people, ideas, events, and intelligence failures that led to the attacks. 40,000 first printing.
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 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.
Wright (a staff writer for The New Yorker) combines a journalistic history of the origins and evolutions of Al Qaeda with the story of American intelligence and military responses to the threat posed by the organization. His account begins with experiences of the organization's ideological father, Sayyid Qutb, in the United States in the 1950s, and then traces Qutb's involvement in Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood and how it eventually led to the founding by Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri of Al Qaeda. His treatment of these figures, and of the CIA and other officials tracking their movements, discusses their ideological, organizational, and political evolution, but also places a greater emphasis on personal and family relationships than might be commonly expected in such a narrative. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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.