| | |  | Information Security | Home » » The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 | | | | | | | Description: | | UPDATED AND WITH A NEW AFTERWORD
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. | | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9781400030842
• Condition: New
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| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Lawrence Wright | | Paperback:
| 553 pages | | Publisher:
| Vintage | | Publication Date:
| August 21, 2007 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1400030846 | | Product Length:
| 5.15 inches | | Product Width:
| 1.15 inches | | Product Height:
| 8.0 inches | | Product Weight:
| 1.19 pounds | | Package Length:
| 7.9 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.2 inches | | Package Height:
| 1.1 inches | | Package Weight:
| 1.0 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 374 reviews |
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| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
81 of 84 found the following review helpful:
 Captivating account of events leading to 9-11Sep 03, 2006
By B. McEwan
"yellokat"
Lawrence Wright has written an utterly absorbing book that will both captivate and appall you, and not just because of his recounting of the breathtaking horrors that took place on September 11, 2001. Equally appalling is Wright's depiction of the entrenched bureaucrats at the CIA, FBI and the National Security Agency, who failed to share crucial information with one another because of petty personal differences and agency cultures that value conformity above true investigative ability. Had the CIA, in particular, released information regarding the whereabouts of several individuals who ultimately participated in the 9-11 attacks, those tragedies might well have been prevented.
Reading these things was deeply painful for me, who watched the Trade Towers collapse as I sped across Queens trying to get home to my family in Brooklyn Heights. I can only imagine how distressing this experience might be to those who lost friends and loved ones in the attacks that day. Yet Wright has handled this difficult material in a way that makes it bearable to read, and his pacing of the story is masterful. The Looming Tower reads like a suspense novel at times and the writing is lyrical.
The book is also chock full of pertinent facts and background material that help make sense, insofar as that is even possible, of the motivations of the terrorists. I have never seen logic in the tactics of al Qaeda and similar groups, but this book has helped me understand that logic is not the driving force. Rather it seems to be history, the pursuit of a tribal conception of "honor" and a desire to recreate past glory that is far more important than logic. Wright connects those dots to paint a picture of the "terrorist" that is far more three-dimensional than the one that Bush Administration officials and the media have given us.
There are also a number of oddball facts and anecdotes that enliven The Looming Tower and add to its interest. For example, Wright relates a tidbit that highlights the so-called "clash of cultures" better than anything I've read to date: "[Jamal al-Fadl] would become al-Qaeda's first traitor. He offered to sell his story to various intelligence agencies in the Middle East, including the Israelis. He eventually found a buyer when he walked into the American Embassy in Eritrea in June 1996. In return for nearly $1 million, he became a government witness. While in protective custody, he won the New Jersey Lottery."
There are lots of other gems in this book, including some nearly unbelievable tales about John O'Neill, who would be the hero (or perhaps anti-hero) of Wright's book, if it had a hero, which it doesn't. You should really buy The Looming Tower right away and read it for yourself.
455 of 506 found the following review helpful:
Waking Up to the Nightmare of Al-QaedaAug 10, 2006
By M. JEFFREY MCMAHON
"herculodge"
In Lawrence Wright's masterpiece The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, he effortlessly connects disparate puzzle pieces of our current clash with Islamofascism with a coherent, page-turning narrative that at time reads like a Robert Ludlum suspense novel. He begins with FBI operative Dan Coleman who finds terrifying evidence in 1996 that there is an organization, Al-Qaeda, that is hell-bent on destroying America and spreading Islamofascism throughout the world. His superiors find Coleman's claims "too bizarre, too primitive and exotic" and fail to take action. In other words, the Western imagination cannot comprehend the Islamofascist mentality. It is Wright's objective to get inside, to the very core, of Al-Qaeda's chief figures and show us how they feel humiliated by the successes of the West, including Israel, and how this humiliation, plus a great deal of sexual repression, animates their obsession with becoming "martyrs for Allah." Lawrence Wright achieves his objective masterfully and leaves a terrifying, indelible imprint on the reader. Having read dozens of "9/11" books, I can say this is my favorite. The book succeeds for several reasons. First, it shows the failure of American imagination in dealing with terrorism. Second, Wright's narratives leading to 9/11 are effortlessly woven with concrete (never academic) psychological profiles of the seeds of Al-Qaeda: We see the fastidious, sexually repressed Egyptian anti-Semite religious scholar Sayyid Qutb as he navigates post World War II America. He is disgusted by our freedom and equality for women and his disgust radicalizes him so that he returns to Egypt to support a radical theocracy movement that thrives to this day. We see Bin Laden's number two man, Al-Zawahiri, one of Qutb's acolytes, a complex intellectual who consolidates all his brilliance and energies to become a cold-blooded killer. We see of course Bin Laden himself and the historical roots of his hatred for the West.
A complex, nuanced intelligent book, The Looming Tower does not demonize Islam. To the contrary, it shows that mainstream Islam has struggled against extremists spawned by the post World War II writings of militant Islam jihadist founder Sayyid Qutb.
What is most amazing about this book is that Wright's ability to get inside the head of a terrorist with the narrative speed of thriller novel allows us to comprehend the terrorist's motivations and to wake up from a deep sleep that has imperiled us.
314 of 352 found the following review helpful:
Lecture about the bookSep 29, 2006
By John
I saw the author last night at a book signing/lecture, and wrote down some of his main points. I hope it is o.k. with him that I share them here, and what he said, because I found if very fascinating. Mr. Wright is a very intelligent, "gentle" man who obviously cares about things and people, and I found him very likeable, becuase he has a good sense of humor and he did so much research for this book, and travelled extensively. He said he interviewed over 1,000 people in the Arab world for this book.
Some of the main points of what he said:
- The Arabic world is incredibly insular. He said, if you take away oil, the entire Arab world, from Morocco to Pakistan, produces less economically than the Finnish company Nokia (Nokia has less than 8,000 employees). He said, there have been 10,000 books ever translated into Arabic. If you think about that in terms of how many rows of book stacks that would be at a bookstore, it is shocking (I calculate that to be a few stacks of books !). One single Borders in the U.S. thus contains far more books than have ever been translated by Arabic translators (Spain alone translates about 10,000 books a year). Thus, most Arabs are, for our standards, incredibly lacking in resources, to understand our world. Not only that, but their countries censor books and all media. Freedom to assemble basically does not exist in the Arab world, and thus, basic freedoms are lacking.
- There is "gender apartheid" in [most of] the Arab world (particularly Saudi Arabia). Women are mostly not seen in public in Saudi Arabia. Men know very little about women as a result (how to meet them ?). It is pathetic, how little young men know about women. (he said, in Saudi Arabia, the women secretaries at his reporting agency worked in a room below a stairwell, and were basically never seen. he said, you would see Saudi women so covered by a burka, that you could not tell which direction their face was pointing !).
- The author said, in discussion with Arab men, the opinions he expressed, they had never considered, and never heard of. He said, it was like if a martian came down and said things that no one had ever said before and that were new and shocking. And those are normal conversations in the West.
- The Islamists (Al Quida, Muslim Brotherhood, etc.) have no plan. They simply want to destroy things and "take over". But when asked what their economic plan is, they have none. The only real goal of the Muslim Brotherhood, for example, is the hijab for women (headcovering). Other than that, the muslim brotherhood has no plan or goal for society. "It is like an empty vessle". Bin Ladin has no plan other than wanting the U.S. out of Saudi Arabia, and blind destruction of things western. How do you deal with unemployment (no answer). Hamas is now in power in "Palestine", and has found that ruling is very hard. It shows them that they now must have a program, but they don't have one.
- Pakistan was "the most mysterious country" the author visited. Far from being unstable, it is "very, very stable", "too stable" ("eerily stable"). He said, the military "owns" Pakistan, and it is run by military families. If you are not in the military, you are basically locked out of Pakistani society. He said, they play a game with the U.S. called "find Bin Ladin". They constantly get paid by the U.S., and they pretend to look for Bin Ladin. It is all a game to get money from the U.S. He said, there is now a "permanent Al Quida zone" along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and it is very worrying.
- Our U.S. intelligence is basically incapable of dealing with Al Quida. The FBI is staffed by Irish and Italian men, who know those cultures. The Arab applicants are shut out as a "security risk". Result: no one who really speaks Arabic. The FBI recently graduated 50 new recruits. Only one of them speaks any foreign language. Since the 1970s, U.S. intelligence has been hamstrung and hollowed out. There is no "human intelligence" anymore. There is basically zero hope that the CIA and FBI can deal with Al Quida. Everyone in government realizes that the Dept. of Homeland Security is a joke.
- Clinton really tried to kill Bin Ladin, and should have fired his CIA director after he gave the CIA the order to kill Bin Ladin, and two years later, he was still alive.
- One thing that motivated Wolfowitz and Cheney is that they really believed that Iraq had a hand in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center.
- Iraq is a mess. Either way, Al Quida wins. If the U.S. withdrew, it would get much worse.
- Al Quida has very long-term plans, involving "drawing the U.S. in" to the Arab world. They would love it if we attacked Iran, because that would draw Iran in, and their "resources", into a world-wide fight.
- The author asked Islamic experts in the Arab world, "how will this conflict end". They mostly said that it is likely that the following will occur: a major western city were to be attacked by nuclear or biological weapon. Wright said, because we live in democracies, the public outcry would be so exterme and harsh, that a counterstrike, "attacking and destroying Mecca, Medina, and various targets in Iran" would be very, very likely, if not a foretold conclusion (!). (the CIA has even gone to Hollywood script writers to ask them for "scenarios", because they think that those scriptwriters "have more imagination" than bureaucrats at the CIA.
- The way to deal with Bin Ladin, if he were caught: try him before "Sharia courts". Take him to Kenya and Tanzania and make him confront the 150 Muslims who he blinded by the 1998 bomb blasts. Take him around and try him by sharia law. Take him to Saudi Arabia and ask for his execution. Make him look like he violated his own standards. Don't kill him, because then you make him a martyr.
26 of 26 found the following review helpful:
Wright delivers an impressive and illuminating analysis of the madmen behind the terrorDec 23, 2006
By A. G. Corwin
Of all the books released this year, Lawrence Wright's exhaustively researched and extraordinarily well-written The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, is one of the few must read books of 2006. Taking a more forensic approach to the personalities that make up Al-Qaeda, Wright allows the audience a better understanding into just how these jihadists became the sick, twisted, corrupt men who called for war not just against the United States, but anyone who didn't share their fundamentalist views. Wright begins his analysis by examining the lives of the two main players, Al-Zawahiri and Bin Ladin. Exhaustively interviewing hundreds who came into contact with these men, Wright develops a highly detailed understanding of what motivates these men and how they developed their tafkiri fundamentalism. Tracing their actions from childhood through the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Wright lays out the trail of Al-Qaeda's development into a terror organization that first struck in Tanzania and Kenya and later in the United States.
Surprisingly, the vast amount of detail and the intricate webs of different factions and players does not slow the book down; no glossary or cast of characters is required. As time in the book moves closer towards September 2001, there is a perceptive quickening in pace until the planes hit the towers. 9/11 effectively ends the narrative on a dramatic note. Wright doesn't go into depth about the 9/11 hijackers, nor does he write an in-depth analysis of the Afghanistan War (the book ends with the escape of Al-Qaida into Pakistan after Tora Bora, and the US campaign in Afghanistan is a few pages at best). The Looming Tower is not a in-depth analysis of the policies of the US government, or the problems between the FBI and CIA, or even an attempt at understanding how Al-Qaida was able to hijack the planes and strike. The Looming Tower is more an analysis into why Zawahiri and bin Ladin decided to take action, and how men of relative privilege turned into sociopaths with an agenda so perverted that even those of their own religion denounce it. With its clear and crisp prose and its sharp eye for detail, The Looming Tower is an impressive book that should be read by anyone with an interest in the topic. One of the best books of 2006 and highly recommended.
A.G. Corwin
St.Louis, MO
197 of 231 found the following review helpful:
The Plot Against The World Trade CenterAug 08, 2006
By C. Hutton
"book maven"
There has been a numerous books published on the events concerning 9-11. Three of the best were published in 2002 : 1). "The Age of Sacred Terror" by Daniel Benjamin & Steve Simon; 2). "Out of the Blue" by Richard Bernstein; and 3). "The Cell" by John Miller. The first explored Islamic fundamentalism while the latter two examined the actual 9-11 plot and America's institutional failings. All three had the drawbacks of being "instant history." Mr. Wright has the advantages of five years perspective with more information available to him.
"The Looming Tower" follows the well-known facts of the 9-11 plot -- where it differs is in the amount of detail provided by his interviews and research in fleshing out the 9-11 plot. At nearly 500 pages, it is longer than most other 9-11 books but written in a readable, can't-put-it-down style. Mr. Wright presents the best portrait of the doomed FBI agent John O'Neill since "The Cell." This book is one to have on your bookshelf.
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