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The cover of The Looming Tower

The Looming Tower

Lawrence Wright, 2006

How Osama bin Laden's network grew from the ideas of Sayyid Qutb into the September 11 attacks, and how the FBI's John O'Neill and Ali Soufan pursued it.

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21 parts, about 36 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • Traces the road to the September attacks from an Egyptian writer's prison manifesto through Afghanistan, Sudan and the embassy bombings
  • Shows how rivalry between the FBI and CIA, and warnings nobody connected, let the plot go ahead
  • Builds the story from the lives of the militants and the agents chasing them, so ideas and failures have human faces

Who it is for

  • Readers who want to know where al Qaeda came from
  • People working in intelligence, security or law enforcement
  • Students of the Middle East and political Islam

What the summary covers

  1. Alec Station1 min
  2. The Martyr2 min
  3. The Sporting Club2 min
  4. The Founder2 min
  5. Change1 min
  6. The Miracles1 min
  7. The Base2 min
  8. Return of the Hero1 min
  9. Paradise2 min
  10. The Silicon Valley2 min
  11. Paradise Lost1 min
  12. The Prince of Darkness1 min
  13. The Boy Spies2 min
  14. Hijira1 min
  15. Going Operational1 min
  16. Bread and Water2 min
  17. Now It Begins3 min
  18. The New Millennium2 min
  19. Boom3 min
  20. The Big Wedding2 min
  21. Revelations2 min

Recommended by

  • Robert A. CaroBiographer of Robert Moses and Lyndon B. Johnson
    Lawrence Wright’s integrity and diligence as a reporter shine through every page of this riveting narrative.
  • Dan RatherFormer CBS Evening News anchor
    A towering achievement. One of the best and more important books of recent years. Lawrence Wright has dug deep into and written well a story every American should know. A masterful combination of reporting and writing.
  • Gary SickAdjunct professor of international affairs at Columbia University
    Lawrence Wright provides a graceful and remarkably intimate set of portraits of the people who brought us 9/11.
  • Dexter FilkinsWriter for The New Yorker and war correspondent
    What a riveting tale Lawrence Wright fashions in this marvelous book.
  • Michiko KakutaniFormer chief book critic of The New York Times
    A searing view of the tragic events of September 11, 2001, a view that is at once wrenchingly intimate and boldly sweeping in its historical perspective

About the author

  • Lawrence WrightAmerican writer and journalist, staff writer for The New Yorker
    • Born on 2 August 1947, he is an American writer and journalist and a staff writer for The New Yorker.
    • He is a graduate of Tulane University and studied at the American University in Cairo, where he took a master's degree in applied linguistics in 1969.
    • He began his writing career at The Race Relations Reporter in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1971.
    • He became a staff writer for Texas Monthly in 1980 and a contributing editor to Rolling Stone.
    • He joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1992 and has received three National Magazine Awards.
    • The Looming Tower has been translated into 25 languages, won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and was made into a Hulu series in 2018.
    • His book Going Clear became an HBO documentary with director Alex Gibney that won three Emmys.
    • He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Society of American Historians and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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