About this title: This national bestseller and award-winning book is now available in paperback. A gripping narrative that spans five decades, "The Looming Tower" explains in unprecedented detail the rise of al-Qaeda and the intelligence failures that culminated in the attacks on 9/11.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Description: Good. 2006-Hardcover----Used-Good-Hall Street Books proudly ships from Brooklyn, NY. All orders are processed and shipped within 24 hours, M-F. 100% money back No-Worry guarantee with expedited delivery and delivery confirmation available. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2007-08-21
ISBN-13:9781400030842ISBN:1400030846
Description: Good. Corners are a little dented. Every heavytail order includes with a sweet! We carefully hand clean and reinspect each and every item we ship. Our quality control process ensures items to be in the condition described or better. Heavytail is determined to earn your repeat business through old fashioned customer service. We love international orders. read more
Edition: Fifth Printing
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Knopf, New York
Date Published: 2006
ISBN-13:9780375414862ISBN:037541486X
Description: Good in Very Good dust jacket. 037541486X. Riveting, readable summation of the rise of Al-Qaeda and radical Islam. With large interior stain from liguid spillage, otherwise in good shape. Flap w/orig. $27.95 price.; 8vo 8"-9" tall. read more
Description: Very Good. 1400030846 Paperback, Condition: Very Good; this book is in very good condition with light curve to the spine / light reading creases to the covers. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Date Published: 2007-01-17
ISBN-13:9780786292608ISBN:0786292601
Description: Very Good. This is a 2007 X/LIBRARY hardcover. Pictorial front cover; no DJ. LARGE PRINT. All clean crisp text pages with a nice secure binding. Black and white photography throughout. Daily shipping. read more
Description: Good. Purchasing this book supports the King County Library System Foundation. Thriftbooks and KCLSF have partnered to help raise additional funds for the library system. Ex-Library book-will contain library markings. Book has appearance of light use with no easily noticeable wear. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very Good. Former Library book. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Vintage Books USA
Date Published: 2007
ISBN-13:9781400030842ISBN:1400030846
Description: Very good. No dust jacket as issued. Pages are lightly edge soiled, gentle creases to the fore corners. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 540 p. Contains: Illustrations. Audience: General/trade. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Date Published: 2007-08-21
ISBN-13:9781400030842ISBN:1400030846
Description: New. NEW: First Vintage Trade Paperback Edition, September 2007, First Printing (complete # line)for you collectors. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, no markings, no creases, no remainder marks. read more
Description: Fine. 037541486X Very light shelf wear / edge wear cover / pages like new condition//"Buy with Confidence-Satisfaction Guaranteed! Customer Service Makes All the Difference. " read more
"I was quite apprehensive about reading this book, despite the good reviews and the desire to read a book my grandfather was passing it along. The content didn't help much either; I seem to have a need for texts I can escape in and digest quickly. It took me a month with The Looming Tower, but I'll say I found myself watching, listening and reading more news about the middle east than I ever thought I would. Wright looks closely at the bin Laden family, and immediately for me dispelled a multitude of misconceptions I had about Al-Qaeda and its political relevance in the middle east. Equally as interesting though is the story Wright intertwines about the dysfunctional communication between the CIA and the FBI, which he does through what I consider fairly strong character development with only a few primary players, particularly an obsessed and ethically questionable FBI leader. His personal and professional life clashed in ways that seemed to parallel the Al-Qaeda organization."
"If you've ever wondered where al-Qaeda and groups like it get their twisted, pathetic ideology, "The Looming Tower" has some answers for you.
Starting in the '40s with Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian who visited America and condemned the nation for its individualism, secularism, and women's rights, among other things, militant Islam started as a movement to overthrow the Egyptian government to establish an Islamic state there by violent means.
Through the years, others, like Ayman Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, latched on to the idea of an Islamic state, a return to the caliphate. For bin Laden, America was the biggest obstacle to achieving his goal, and he lost no sleep killing anyone who got in the way.
Okay, with that little summary, let me tell you this book is an illumination. Lawrence Wright explains what drives al-Qaeda, how they planned the bombings of the embassies in Africa, the bombing of the USS Cole, and a brief time line of the planning that went into the 9/11 attacks.
Wright singles out the CIA, and justifiably so, for the IDIOTIC refusal to share intelligence with other agencies, especially the FBI. The catastrophe on that Tuesday in September, 2001, could have been prevented absolutely had the FBI received the intel it needed to monitor, detain, and prosecute al-Qaeda members in the United States. Wright makes this point very clear, and his research seems unimpeachable.
The book makes clear that the Islamic enemies of liberty will not rest until everything we freedom lovers hold dear is utterly destroyed.
What a wake up call for me. I feel more aware than ever of the need to combat this cult of death and destruction that militant Islam represents.
You, yes you, should read this book to understand what we're up against."
"This is a really impressive book -- i kept picturing a possessed Lawrence Wright gathering exhaustive bits of information and keeping them in order on some big dirty wall, all elliot ness and richie roberts. In any survey of the origin and development of radical Islamic groups around the world, one has to decide how much space to dedicate to various time periods, nations, cultural/religious/political backgrounds, personalities, economic forces, outside reactions. I think Wright does a great job here managing the massive subject here, with the ultimate destination of course being the 9/11 attacks and the destruction of the World Trade Center in particular. He covers the beginnings of modern-day Islamic fundamentalism and its fractured growth, the backgrounds and co-existence of bin Laden and Zawahiri, and developments in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Sudan. He even gives the reader an idea what numerous terrorist attacks were meant to accomplish as well as showing that bin Laden never really had a very clear agenda or even understanding of his own rage. Finally, Wright covers the oft-mentioned breakdown in cooperation between the US agencies, painting a dark and difficult picture of territorial infighting puncuated by bureacratic inefficiencies. And still, as many dozens (hundreds?) of times that we've all seen the WTC footage and heard the stories, the reading of those attacks shatters."
"I took away from this book a new picture of terrorists, finding out terrorists are generally well educated and are not always deeply religious. This is surprising. They all seem, however, to be expatriots, living away from the countries of their ancestors. What else? Bin Laden's father was blinded by a teacher at school; after the incident, his father never returned to school and was illiterate for his entire life. O'Neill, one of the senior figures at the FBI who was in search for Bin Laden, left the agency on August 22 and reported to his new job, head of security for the Twin Towers. He was on the job on September 11 and was killed. I never quite figured out what motivated the terrorists. But most used the text of a book written many hundreds of years after the Koran as their basis for action. The Koran itself states explicitly that suicide will result in a trip to Hell. Murder in the Koran is prohibited. The terrorists, thus, are not following the Koran, but those who have interpreted and elaborated on it."
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