Last night I finished reading The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright1. The book won awards from Time, Newsweek, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The New York Times Book Review for being one of the best books of 2006. The Looming Tower also won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007.
The book itself is a mesmerizing narrative that spans the better part of five decades, The Looming Tower details in an unprecedented narrative: the explosion of Islamic fundamentalism, the creation and rise of al-Qaeda, and the many intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Wright visualizes the creation and development Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri from, incompetent and idealistic soldiers hiding in Afghanistan, to leaders of the most successful international terrorist group in history. Besides al-Qaeda, Wright also follows the career of FBI counterterrorism chief John O’Neill as he uncovers the emerging danger from al-Qaeda, and attempts to hunt down the group’s leaders. The book is packed with new information and contains well researched historical perspectives. To date, The Looming Tower is the most comprehensive history of the events leading up to September 11.
The author, Lawrence Wright, is a graduate of Tulane University. After graduation he spent two years teaching at the American University2 in Cairo, Egypt. Currently, Wright is a staff writer for The New Yorker as well as a fellow at the Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law. Besides other nonfiction work, Wright has written a novel, God’s Favorite, and also co-wrote the screenplay for the movie The Siege.
I don’t have much to say about The Looming Tower, except that it was a superb read. Prior to reading the book, my knowledge of the origins and development of al-Qaeda was very limited. I was surprised by the long history that Wright recants in the book, but I understand why I was not aware of that history. All of this information and history was new to the American public when the book was first issued. The stories and history taking place in The Looming Tower happened half the world away, and was largely ignored by western culture. Before September 11, no one in America really cared what was happening on the other side of the globe. But ever since that day, the interest and importance of understanding world events has become much more clear. If you are at all interested in the current situation in the Middle East, or even want to know more about al-Qaeda’s history, you should definitely read Wright’s book. It was full of useful insight and information, which has helped me to better understand the struggle against international terrorism around the world.
Also if you are interested in the current state of Iraq, check out this prior post.