Wright, Lawrence. The looming tower; Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11

Kliatt, Jan, 2008 by Raymond Puffer

WRIGHT, Lawrence. The looming tower; Al-Qaeda and the road to 9/11. Random House, Vintage. 539p. illus, notes, bibliog, index. c2006. 978-1-4000-3084-2. $15.95. SA *

This disturbing book (a Pulitzer Prize winner) is undoubtedly the best place to get a real understanding of just what led an Arabian hate group to carry out its cruel attack on the Twin Towers, and how it managed to accomplish such a disaster. In the days following Al Qaeda's spectacular coup, the FBI and CIA quickly unraveled just how the attack was carried out, but much of the public still wonders why, and just what it was supposed to accomplish: to humiliate the nation in some way? To kick off a Moslem jihad against the Western world? Or was it simply to kill as many Americans as possible, just because they were Americans?

Author Lawrence Wright, a professional writer with experience in the Middle East, has assembled a remarkably detailed reconstruction of the events leading up to the attack, going back to the older Islamic intellectuals and dissidents who first inspired a youthful Bin Laden. The narrative leads us through the days in which his group jelled in Afghanistan and carried out its long series of predecessor attacks against the US: bombing its embassies in Africa, the U.S.S. Cole, and other atrocities that properly ought to have alerted the US to the existence of an implacable enemy group. Instead, the lack of a proper response only confirmed the plotters' most extreme conclusion: that America had become too wealthy and too decadent to really care.

Wright's biggest contribution is to ferret out the key personalities in the conspiracy and to explain their mindset. He does the same for various American agencies and individuals who were involved in tracking Al-Qaeda even before the attacks in New York. This is a distinct service to readers who have become overwhelmed by subsequent events. A glossary of the principal characters is a most useful feature of the book, as is a series of extensive notes. Scholarly apparatus aside, the narrative reads like an action book and will definitely appeal to interested YAs. Raymond Puffer, Ph.D., Historian (retired), Edwards AFB, CA