The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

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.)
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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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1 edition (August 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 037541486X
• ISBN-13: 978-0375414862
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (319 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #14,795 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

226 of 246 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lecture about the book, September 29, 2006

By	John - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

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.

398 of 443 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Waking Up to the Nightmare of Al-Qaeda, August 10, 2006

By	M. JEFFREY MCMAHON "herculodge" (Torrance, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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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.

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captivating account of events leading to 9-11, September 3, 2006

By	B. McEwan "yellokat" (Brooklyn, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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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.