A review by p_t_b
The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright

5.0

Wright is an amazing reporter, and a good explainer of religious extremism. Perhaps being 12.5 years removed from the attacks tamps down some of the innate drama of this story. That it was published just five years after the attacks is impressive speed, given the focus Wright pulls on a complex, geographically and conceptually tangled story. This is strictly about the ideas and men that conceived the 9/11 attacks, and the bureaucratic infighting that prevented intelligence agencies from preventing them. Definitely kind of a bummer but I feel like I needed to read this at some point to understand al-Qaeda beyond caricature. Glad I read this, even if it took me seven years to get to it.