Lawrence Wright4.5 A sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault on America. Lawrence Wright's remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conducted in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States.
The Looming Tower achieves an unprecedented level of intimacy and insight by telling the story through the interweaving lives of four men: the two leaders of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri; the FBI's counterterrorism chief, John O'Neill; and the former head of Saudi intelligence, Prince Turki al-Faisal.
As these lives unfold, we see revealed: the crosscurrents of modern Islam that helped to radicalize Zawahiri and bin Laden . . . the birth of al-Qaeda and its unsteady development into an organization capable of the American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania and the attack on the USS Cole . . . O'Neill's heroic efforts to track al-Qaeda before 9/11, and his tragic death in the World Trade towers . . . Prince Turki's transformation from bin Laden's ally to his enemy . . . the failures of the FBI, CIA, and NSA to share intelligence that might have prevented the 9/11 attacks.
The Looming Tower broadens and deepens our knowledge of these signal events by taking us behind the scenes. Here is Sayyid Qutb, founder of the modern Islamist movement, lonely and despairing as he meets Western culture up close in 1940s America; the privileged childhoods of bin Laden and Zawahiri; family life in the al-Qaeda compounds of Sudan and Afghanistan; O'Neill's high-wire act in balancing his all-consuming career with his equally entangling personal life--he was living with three women, each of them unaware of the others' existence--and the nitty-gritty of turf battles among U.S. intelligence agencies.
Brilliantly conceived and written, The Looming Tower draws all elements of the story into a galvanizing narrative that adds immeasurably to our understanding of how we arrived at September 11, 2001. The richness of its new information, and the depth of its perceptions, can help us deal more wisely and effectively with the continuing terrorist threat.
Роберт Каган0.0 Most Americans believe the United States had been an isolationist power until the twentieth century. This is wrong. In a riveting and brilliantly revisionist work of history, Robert Kagan, bestselling author of Of Paradise and Power, shows how Americans have in fact steadily been increasing their global power and influence from the beginning. Driven by commercial, territorial, and idealistic ambitions, the United States has always perceived itself, and been seen by other nations, as an international force. This is a book of great importance to our understanding of our nation’s history and its role in the global community.
Маргарет Макмиллан0.0 In February 1972, Richard Nixon became the first American president to visit China. His historic one-hour meeting with Mao Zedong ended the breach between the United States and China, which had lasted since the Communist victory in 1949. Just as significantly, the visit changed the face of international relations from a bipolar Cold War to a three-sided struggle involving the Soviet Union, China, and the United States. Drawing on newly available material and interviews with all major survivors, MacMillan re-examines that fateful week. Authoritative and written with great narrative verve, Nixon in China is a landmark work of history.
Дэвид М. Мэлоун0.0 Iraq has dominated headlines in recent years, but its controversial role in international affairs goes back much further. Drawing on unparalleled access to UN insiders, this book is key to understanding one of the most persistent crises in international affairs and the various roles the world's central peace-making forum has played in it.
Томас Рикс0.0 The definitive account of the American military's tragic experience in Iraq from a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter. Thomas E. Ricks, senior Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post, puts forth in Fiasco a masterful reckoning with the planning & execution of the American military invasion & occupation of Iraq, now with a preface on recent developments. Ricks draws on the exclusive cooperation of an extraordinary number of American personnel-including more than one hundred senior officers--& access to more than 30,000 pages of official documents, many of them never before made public. Tragically, it is an undeniable account--explosive, shocking & authoritative--of unsurpassed tactical success combined with unsurpassed strategic failure that indicts some of America's most powerful & honored civilian & military leaders.
