ilchinealach reviewed The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
Review of 'The Looming Tower' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
serviceable journalistic biography of Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri
480 pages
English language
Published Aug. 8, 2006 by Knopf.
4 stars
(20 reviews)
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 …
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.
Luca Broggi reviewed Le altissime torri by Lawrence Wright
Review of 'Le altissime torri' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
È un bel resoconto sui movimenti islamici che portarono Bin Laden e Zawairi a promuovere un attacco contro gli stati uniti e quello che rappresentano (in particolare come avamposto cristiano). La lettura scorre e non mancano alcuni riferimenti scioccanti all'incapacità di dialogo tra le agenzie americane (CIA, NSA, FBI).
La descrizione dell'attentato al WTC è sintetico ma mi ha molto colpito emotivamente.
Siddhartha Golu reviewed The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
Review of 'The Looming Tower' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
A brilliant backstory to the global phenomena that shook the world to its core and ultimately, for better or for worse, shifted the entire political spectrum in many countries. This Pulitzer-prize winning book deserves all the acclaims it gets. Mostly when people talk about terrorists and Jihad, they only discuss the result - the bombings, the beheadings, the hijackings - but very few people care about going into the details of how these attacks happened in the first place. Although it remains a big mystery to me, Lawrence manages to shine some lights on some of the key figures in this global Jihad and what ultimately motivated them to take on this deadly course. A page-turner for sure and a must-read for anyone who is as ignorant about Jihad as I was till sometime ago.
markm reviewed The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
Review of 'The Looming Tower' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
The terrible tragic story of the development of modern Islamic terrorism, the results of poor communication between the CIA and the FBI, and the consequences we can obtain when ignorance and cruelty are combined with some widely held delusion. The ending is abrupt and makes the account even more tragic. The book was published in 2006, five years before OBL caught his.
The Beach Reader reviewed The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright
Review of 'The Looming Tower' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I would need to read this twice to let everything really sink in; to Americans, this book presents the same problem with names that Crime and Punishment does. More so, because of all the aliases.
It contains a quick history of al Qaeda that places it in its context of 60 years of radical Islamic fundamentalist thought, from World War II up to the days immediately after the September 11 attacks. Thoroughly researched and footnoted, this is an essential reference to understanding the nightly news.
This book also explains, much more clearly than the 9/11 Commission Report did, exactly how the United States law enforcement and intelligence communities missed all the signs that an attack was coming. We had people in the FBI who were motivated and capable of stopping the attack, but they didn't have crucial information at a critical time -- information that the CIA had. but wouldn't …
I would need to read this twice to let everything really sink in; to Americans, this book presents the same problem with names that Crime and Punishment does. More so, because of all the aliases.
It contains a quick history of al Qaeda that places it in its context of 60 years of radical Islamic fundamentalist thought, from World War II up to the days immediately after the September 11 attacks. Thoroughly researched and footnoted, this is an essential reference to understanding the nightly news.
This book also explains, much more clearly than the 9/11 Commission Report did, exactly how the United States law enforcement and intelligence communities missed all the signs that an attack was coming. We had people in the FBI who were motivated and capable of stopping the attack, but they didn't have crucial information at a critical time -- information that the CIA had. but wouldn't share because of bureaucratic infighting and misinterpreted rules. Infuriating.
Subjects
- Intelligence service
- Qaida (Organization)
- Terrorism
- September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001
- Government policy
Places
- United States