Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8609 in Books
• Published on: 2006-08-08
• Released on: 2006-08-08
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 480 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Wright, a New Yorker writer, brings exhaustive research and delightful prose to one of the best books yet on the history of terrorism. He begins with the observation that, despite an impressive record of terror and assassination, post–WWarII, Islamic militants failed to establish theocracies in any Arab country. Many helped Afghanistan resist the Russian invasion of 1979 before their unemployed warriors stepped up efforts at home. Al-Qaeda, formed in Afghanistan in 1988 and led by Osama bin Laden, pursued a different agenda, blaming America for Islam's problems. Less wealthy than believed, bin Laden's talents lay in organization and PR, Wright asserts. Ten years later, bin Laden blew up U.S. embassies in Africa and the destroyer Cole, opening the floodgates of money and recruits. Wright's step-by-step description of these attacks reveals that planning terror is a sloppy business, leaving a trail of clues that, in the case of 9/11, raised many suspicions among individuals in the FBI, CIA and NSA. Wright shows that 9/11 could have been prevented if those agencies had worked together. As a fugitive, bin Ladin's days as a terror mastermind may be past, but his success has spawned swarms of imitators. This is an important, gripping and profoundly disheartening book. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
The Looming Tower may be the most riveting, informative, and "heart-stopping account" yet of the men who shaped 9/11 (New York Times Book Review). The focus on individuals gives the book its emotional punch, but it is also a narrative bold in conception and historical sweep. Lawrence Wright conducted more than 500 interviews, from bin Laden's best friend in college to Richard A. Clarke, Saudi royalty, Afghan mujahideen, and reporters for Al Jazeera. The result, while evenhanded in its analysis of the complex motives, ideals, and power plays that led to 9/11, leaves few nefarious details uncovered. An abrupt ending did little to sway critics that Looming Tower is nothing less than "indispensable" reading (Cleveland Plain Dealer).

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

From AudioFile
A narrator doesn't just tell a story; he keeps the listener company. Alan Sklar is good company--with a voice so distinctive that a blind man could pick him out from across the room. This is straight historical narrative with few dialogue exchanges, but those that do come up are seized upon. Thus, when one Al-Qaeda operative tries to speak in code and his wife refuses to play along, this tragedy touches comedy. When Osama Bin Laden has a wedding speech filmed a second time, because his neck looks thick, you can sense the smile in Sklar's voice. The research is astonishingly thorough, and clearly presented. If you mean to know thine enemy, this one's a must. B.H.C. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

THE book to read if you ever want to know why 9/11 happened
I like to read a lot. I owned the hard copy version of The Looming Tower and because I have well over 500 other books on my shelves, hadn't gotten around to reading it. Then I downloaded the iPod audiobook version which ended up grasping me totally. Finally I bought a Kindle and The Looming Tower now resides there as well.

The book is an incredible story of 9/11 and those who made, and let it happen as well as those who tried as hard as they could to prevent it. One of the latter was an FBI agent who is as complex a character as full of flaws as a human can be but if there is a hero in this book, it's him -warts and all. He was killed on 9/11 trying to save people in the WTC.

Why is this book so good? Because it really delves into the mind set of those who made it happen from bin Laden and his henchmen, to a certifiable "nut case", a Sayyid Qutb whose repressed sexuality and heavens knows what else drove him to father the current version of Islamic fundamentalism. It's easy to realize what sort of sociopaths are drawn to this belief system, but America has its own nut case fundamental religious zealots be they Jewish or Protestant. They range from harmless "speaking in tongues" types and rattle snake handlers to "W", who is as motivated by religious fundamentalism as is bin Laden.

"W" has at least permitted and encouraged wiretapping and torture to deal with the violent brand of Arab crazies who wish a lot worse than 9/11 on us. It may seem out of line to those shuddering in horror at our loss of liberty, but so far there are no more 9/11s in the USA.

I was born in 1938 and remember WW2 [barely] but know enough history to know that when you are at war, you should spare no effort in totally destroying the enemy as we did in WW2 with the Japanese and Germans.

After spending 20 years in the military, I only became more convinced that war should occur only if you mean business. Bringing "democracy" to Iraq is a sick joke. "W" should have watched Lawrence of Arabia and maybe he might have gotten a clue of the inevitable morass that awaited those stuck in the tar of Iraq. In WW2 we weren't worried about locking up presumably innocent Japanese, or censorship of all letters from our soldiers. All this under a president who many Americans considered the political equivalent of Stalin, or the equivalent of a socialist's greatest hope. Today the liberals are still worrying about the loss of freedoms, but freedoms can return AFTER the war. Whether they will is another story. The fault with our current miasma of political manure lies with us citizens. What we see in Congress, not to mention the executive and judicial branches merely reflect America's citizens own lack of care, education and hedonism.

But I digress. The Looming Tower is an incredible "morality tale" and Greek tragedy wrapped up in one. Hubris abounds, those idiots responsible for the debacle are named, although it is apparent that none suffered career reversals for their poor performance with the exception of the two people who saw it coming and couldn't stop it - FBI agent O'Neill and Richard Clarke. Clarke was smeared by Bush gunsels from Limbaugh to other White House staff thugs who fear the truth as a vampire fears sunlight. Condoleza Rice is shown as witless and also very much responsible for 9/11 because when presented with reality she couldn't think clearly or was driven by political expediency to the wrong decision - i.e. ignoring the threat.

The book is NOT a hatchet job on anybody. You get to see all the characters responsible on both sides and there is little to no judgmental criticism. As Det. Friday used to say on Dragnet, for those of you ancient enough to remember him, "Just the facts, M'am. Just the facts."

Much as I hate to swallow my atavistic tendencies to dismiss the likes of bin Laden and his cronies as crazy "rag heads", you will understand the character attributes that made his hellish plans come to fruition, and they certainly did not start with 9/11. I can only wish we had the likes of him to conduct our own war on the terrorists, although fortunately Cheney comes close.

Read this book. You can only grow wiser and sadder from the experience.

A must read to better understand our times.
An excellent book regarding Al-Qaeda and its leaders. Here you will find what the goals are and what the funding ideas behind this organization, what the cultural background and what the deep, profund origins of this terrorist nihilist organization are. Many interesting and dramatic pages regard the unacceptable and irresponsible ideological and burocratic barriers that kept CIA and FBI from identifying and isolating the terrorists while they were in the US territory before 9/11. The personal stories of strong characters with steel personalities such as John o'neill and Mike Schauer are also told. Above all the most striking and appalling feature that comes out is how, once again in history, some influencial individuals distorted the original religious message and warped to a point that it became a message of death, suicide, suffering in name of a delirious and insane goal. A must read to understand our present.

The History of 9/11
In this superbly written book, Lawrence Wright tackles the still controversial subject of how 9/11 happened tact and aplomb. Rather than appealing to extremists on any side of the debate, Wright provides a remarkably in-depth history of how al-Qaeda came into being, and of U.S. policies during and after the Afghan war to kick out the Soviets.

On the al-Qaeda side of the story, Wright begins with the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb and very clearly traces the evolution of militant Islam all the way up to bin Laden and Zawahiri. Qutb's impact on figures like Zawahiri and other Islamists cannot be underestimated, so it is to Wright's credit that he includes a chapter on Qutb. Wright also provides a detailed account of bin Laden's history, from his days in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, and Sudan. Included in this account, Wright reveals that at one point, bin Laden actually suggested an alliance with Shi'ite Muslims to fight the Soviets. Another interesting bit of information found in the book is the meetings between the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda during the late 1990s, and the Iraqi offer to relocate al-Qaeda to Iraq.

Wright also explains 9/11 from the American failure to stop it. This story primarily involves the lack of communication among the CIA, FBI, and NSA. It's no less than chilling to see just how many times 9/11 might have been prevented had it not been for the turf wars between these agencies. If bin Laden is the main antagonist of this story, FBI agent John O'Neil. Even though I consider myself well-read on the subject, I had never heard of O'Neil before. He spent the last decade of his career trying to get bin Laden, and then tragically died trying to rescue people from the World Trade Center.

I've read many fantastic books over the past five years that deal with the U.S. and the Middle East, but Wright's book is really close to the top of my list. I would recommend this book to just about anyone, regardless of their prior knowledge. I think the book's greatest strength is that Wright managed to take an enormously complex subject and make it accessible to the general public, who is still woefully ignorant about American foreign policy and the Middle East in general.