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The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage) | 
 enlarge | Author: Lawrence Wright
Publisher: Vintage
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $10.85
You Save: $5.10 (32%)
New (64) Used (38) Collectible (1) from $7.50
Rating:  289 reviews
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 576
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 1400030846
Dewey Decimal Number: 973.931
EAN: 9781400030842
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
National Book Award Finalist
A Time, Newsweek, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and New York Times Book Review Best Book of the Year
A gripping narrative that spans five decades, The Looming Tower explains in unprecedented detail the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, the rise of al-Qaeda, and the intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Lawrence Wright re-creates firsthand the transformation of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri from incompetent and idealistic soldiers in Afghanistan to leaders of the most successful terrorist group in history. He follows FBI counterterrorism chief John O’Neill as he uncovers the emerging danger from al-Qaeda in the 1990s and struggles to track this new threat. Packed with new information and a deep historical perspective, The Looming Tower is the definitive history of the long road to September 11.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 284 more reviews...
 Audio Version A Little Weak, but Easier to Digest November 25, 2008
I bought the 14-CD unabridged set. I felt that the performance was slightly short of the quality needed to tell this story. Having said that, it's an exhaustingly detailed and lengthy report of the entire arc of how terror got from then to now - so getting it perfect would have been expensive.
The benefit of the book, or recording in my case, is that it makes the motivations and internal battles within Muslim terror sects seem less vague. It's not very hard to understand.
Basically a wacko gets an idea and another wack-job listens to him and now we've got a club of idiots who believe a bunch of mixed up stuff that no one else in Islam ever believed.
Bin Ladin devotees try to convince us they'd be fine carrying on without him. I disgree with this puffery. Bin Ladin is very important to current Islamic terrorists. They'd lose a lot of mojo without him.
should be required reading November 22, 2008
Read this book after seeing the author on a CBS program regarding 911. I found that his telling of the of what led up to the tragic event of 911 balanced and well researched. This should be required reading for everyone as it gives insight into the psyche of the politics/religious influences in the Arab world. Many thanks to Mr. Wright for his book.
This book will get under your skin November 4, 2008
I once asked a professor what he thought about DeLillo's book Falling Man, and his response was that, "It just isn't what America needs right now."
At the time, I remember being exasperated by such a political response from a professor of liberal arts, but after reading this book, I can see what he meant. The Looming Tower is what America needs right now.
What struck me first when I opened it was how quickly I was able to read through it. Non-fiction books are often daunting, boring, heavy-handed, or badly written, but this book is proof that those don't have to be flaws of the genre.
Take a look in the back of the book at the number of books Wright went through in research, and how many people he interviewed, and you'll get a feel for why this book feels so real. Every character is portrayed in details that are fascinating and enthralling. You will probably find yourself confused at first by how sympathetically the characters in bin Laden's network are portrayed, or how darkly we see the American FBI agent John O'Niell; but the strength of this book isn't just that it's as interesting as any postmodernist novel, it's also how even-handedly the characters are reconstructed.
No decision seems to be made by the author--obviously, some people may be upset by that. But the author is not condemning anybody; that's not his job. He steps back, and gives us the information that allows us to feel like we can reproach the actors as we see fit; we may also find that the weaknesses of these sometimes uncomfortably real people are ones that we share. Our own flaws are at stake in any good piece of writing, and this book is absolutely that.
A plot cooked up by cavemen with computers October 20, 2008
This is one of the best books I've read on this vital subject, namely Islamic fundaMENTALism and the war against the West. It is meticulously researched and it reads like a novel. If you meet any windbags who tell you the Islamists are angry because of poverty or because the Yanks and the Brits are naughty in Iraq, just hit them over the head with this book. Hard. Then do it again, because if they are that thick it'll take a while for commonsense and real information to sink in. Call it shock therapy.
Well, as it turns out, the 9/11 mass murders could have been averted if the murderer-plotters had not been frequently assisted by beaurocratic infighting bewteen the FBI and the CIA. The foot dragging and smoke blowing was mainly coming from the CIA.
How did the whole muck heap of hatred come about in the first place? Various Arab-Islamic thinkers with identity problems stemming from their encouters with the West and modernity. Mainly Eqyptians. Bin Laden and his oil money help it along the road.
When you read this book you realise that indeed the West is the best, and it's mankind's only hope for the future.
Good intro to the topic October 16, 2008
Good intro into a more detailed study of radical Islamism. No overt bias. Virtually no discussion of the events leading up to the actual 9/11 attacks -- but a good overview of the rise of al Queda.
The book really makes al Queda and al Jihad seem like a bunch of incompetent nincompoops. One finishes it thinking they got "lucky" on 9/11 and wondering: how could America seriously feel threatened by this band of misfits? Perhaps that is a valuable lesson to be taken from this book, or perhaps the author is guilty of softselling the danger of this organization.
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