The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright

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 US 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.

Lawrence Wright is a graduate of Tulane University and the American University in Cairo, where he spent two years teaching. He is a staff writer for The New Yorker, and the author of one novel, God's Favorite, and six previous books of nonfiction, including In the New World; Saints and Sinners; Remembering Satan; and The Looming Tower, which was the recipient of many honors--among them, The Pulitzer Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and the New York Public Library's Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism. He is also a screenwriter and a playwright. He and his wife are longtime residents of Austin, Texas.

Lawrence Wright official website: http: //www.lawrencewright.com/

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9781400030842
ISBN 10	1400030846
Title	The Looming Tower
Author	Lawrence Wright
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	2007-08-21
Number of pages	592
Prizes	Winner of J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize 2007, Winner of L.A. Times Book Prize (History) 2007, Winner of Lionel Gelber Prize 2007, Winner of New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Award for Excellence in Journalism 2007, Winner of New York Times Editors' Choice 2006, Winner of PEN/USA Literary Award 2007, Winner of Pulitzer Prize 2007, Nominated for Arthur Ross Book Award 2007, Nominated for National Book Awards 2006
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable