BOOK REVIEW: THE LOOMING TOWER. AL-QAEDA'S ROAD TO 9/11.

Lawrence Wright is a staff writer for The New York Times and author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning book "The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda's Road to 9/11". This excellent tome is a historical review of what lead to the awful loss of 3000 lives in the Twin Towers plane attacks in New York in September 2001 and the general view of radical Islamists around the world and their hatred of the West, particularly America. The title comes from a Quranic verse which was quoted in a speech bin Laden made during the attacks to his followers - "Wherever you are, death will find you, even in the looming tower."

Whilst the subject matter is going to be complicated because of the worldwide dispersal of the main players and the overall feel of the story will be sinister, Lawrence Wright does a fantastic job of keeping your interest in a series of events which I feel we should all at least attempt to understand. His research is excellent and he is able to give greatly detailed descriptions of both the Arabic fundamentalists and the American FBI and CIA characters. Very personal details are revealed which shed light on the deeply felt beliefs of both sides of the fight.
I never felt that he was stretching out the story - every detail is informative and relevant. Although essentially a series of increasingly violent events starting in Egypt with the Islamist intellectual Sayyid Qutb's book "Milestones" and leading to the bombing of the World Trade Center several years before the plane attacks, Mr Wright stays with the central characters which aids the understanding of what is going on over the world stage.

I would strongly recommend this book as the first port of call for anyone who is interested in knowing their place in the world currently. I cannot imagine a more authoritative work on the subject.


Sadly, even though we know more through reading books such as this, it seems that we that we know less. Such a shame.

Reviewed 25/OCTOBER/2010 by LordBeanpod@GMail.com

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