The Looming Tower

Lawrence Wright has written an amazing book that helps us understand al-Qaeda. His book The Looming Tower: al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11 is very well written and as a result very upsetting. This deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize.
Would you be surprised to learn foundations of al-Qaeda began from an Egyptian enrolled in grad school at the University of Northern Colorado in 1949? His name was Sayyid Qutb. He began the modern Islamist movement that today is al-Qaeda.

Wright documents the wealth of the bin Laden’s family which provided Osama bin Laden the financial ability to forward his own view of the world through terrorism. Osama bin Laden promoted great myths of Islam defeating massive Soviet troops in Afghanistan to sell his vision…including the dreams of airplanes hitting buildings and his relationship with Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The Looming Tower uncovers frustrating examples of how the US government failed to stop the attacks on 9/11 even when small teams within our intelligence agencies had evidence of the coming attacks. But they were fighting each other. The CIA purposefully withheld evidence from the FBI. This shows how broken our intelligence systems were organized and how they failed America.

Wright has a very interesting story of John O’Neill and his death at the World Trade Center less than one month after leaving the FBI where he actually hunted bin Laden. The role of O’Neill has been also written by Richard Clarke in his book Against All Enemies. Since his death PBS Frontline produced a segment about O’Neill regarding al-Qaeda called The Man who knew. But Wright also reveals in greater detail the false life O’Neill was living and how it ultimately cost him his job at the FBI.

Put the pieces of data together and it would have been clear an attack was already under development. Lawrence Wright has been justly rewarded for his efforts. Five years in development with his work in research and interviews…has clearly established his work as a book required to gain an understanding of al-Qaeda:
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction (2007)
National Book Award Nominee (2007)
Lionel Gelber Prize (2007)
J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize (2007)
Los Angeles Times Book Festival Award for History (2006)
Carr P. Collins Award for Nonfiction (2007)
Investigative Reporters and Editors Medal (2006)
New York Public Library Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism (2007)

NPR audio interview with Wright
AuthorViews video clip with Wright