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The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

Posted by Sustines Laplana, 13 September 2006 at Category/ies: Books

A Review by M. JEFFREY MCMAHON about this book, “The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11″:
In Lawrence Wright’s masterpiece The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, he effortlessly connects disparate puzzle pieces of our current clash with Islamofascism with a coherent, page-turning narrative that at time reads like a Robert Ludlum suspense novel. He begins with FBI operative Dan Coleman who finds terrifying evidence in 1996 that there is an organization, Al-Qaeda, that is hell-bent on destroying America and spreading Islamofascism throughout the world. His superiors find Coleman’s claims “too bizarre, too primitive and exotic” and fail to take action. In other words, the Western imagination cannot comprehend the Islamofascist mentality. It is Wright’s objective to get inside, to the very core, of Al-Qaeda’s chief figures and show us how they feel humiliated by the successes of the West, including Israel, and how this humiliation, plus a great deal of sexual repression, animates their obsession with becoming “martyrs for Allah.” Lawrence Wright achieves his objective masterfully and leaves a terrifying, indelible imprint on the reader. Having read dozens of “9/11″ books, I can say this is my favorite. The books succeeds for several reasons. First, it shows the failure of American imagination in dealing with terrorism. Second, Wright’s narratives leading to 9/11 are effortlessly woven with concrete (never academic) concrete psychological profiles of the seeds of Al-Qaeda: We see the fastidious, sexually repressed Egyptian anti-Semite religious scholar Sayyid Qutb as he navigates post World War II America. He is disgusted by our freedom and equality for women and his disgust radicalizes him so that he returns to Egypt to support a radical theocracy movement that thrives to this day. We see Bin Laden’s number two man, Al-Zawahiri, one of Qutb’s acolytes, a complex intellectual who consolidates all his brilliance and energies to become a cold-blooded killer. We see of course Bin Laden himself and the historical roots of his hatred for the West.

A complex, nuanced intelligent book, The Looming Tower does not demonize Islam. To the contrary, it shows that mainstream Islam has struggled against extremists spawned by the post World War II writings of Islamofascism’s founder Sayyid Qutb.

What is most amazing about this book is that Wright’s ability to get inside the head of a terrorist with the narrative speed of thriller novel allows us to comprehend the terrorist’s motivations and to wake up from a deep sleep that has imperiled us.

Just click the image above to order this book.

Other Books Related to September 11 (9/11) Terror:

Are We Ready?: Public Health since 9/11 (California/Milbank Books on Health and the Public) – A contemporary history of a critical period, Are We Ready? analyzes the impact of 9/11, the anthrax attacks that followed, and preparations for a possible smallpox attack on the nation’s public health infrastructure. David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz interviewed local, state, and federal officials to determine the immediate reactions … (Click the image to order)
Wake-Up Call: The Political Education of a 9/11 Widow – In September of 2001, Breitweiser had a tumor in her breast, was suffering from colitis and lupus and recovering from the death of her mother from cancer of the mouth. Then terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center, killing her beloved husband and hun… (Click the image to order)
Aftermath: World Trade Center Archive – After September 11th, 2001, the Ground Zero site in New York City was classified as a crime scene and only those directly involved in the recovery efforts were allowed inside. The press was also prohibited from the site, but with the help of the Museum of … (Click the image to order)
The 9/11 Report – The 9/11 Report for Every American On December 5, 2005, the 9/11 Commission issued its final report card on the government’s fulfillment of the recommendations issued in July 2004: one A, twelve Bs, nine Cs, twelve Ds, three Fs, and four incompletes. Here is stunning evidence that Sid Jacobson and … (Click the image to order)
Aftermath: Unseen 9/11 Photos by a New York City Cop – On the fifth anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, former NYPD detective and lifelong photographer John Botte unveils his powerful, penetrating portraits of America’s unforgettable tragedy. Asked by the police commissioner to document the aftermath, Botte spent countless hours at Ground Zero in the moments, days, … (Click the image to order)