This is a tremendously impressive book. Lawrence Wright shows us what a determined, intelligent, and careful journalist can do. Just five years after that fateful day in 2001, he wrote a narrative about the events leading up to, and people responsible for, the attack that is as gripping as any crime drama (which, as it happens, this book was eventually transformed into). If news is the first draft of history, this account is well on its way to becoming the fair copy.
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Very often—particularly in the many sections on Bin Laden—I found myself wondering how Wright, a mere civilian journalist, was able to collect so much information. In the midst of a massive military invasion, and one of the biggest manhunts in history, Wright somehow interviewed several members of Bin Laden’s inner circle. He also does a fine job in taking us inside the American Intelligence services, particularly the FBI. As far as lessons go, he concurs with the 9/11 Commission in concluding that a lack of cooperation between the FBI and CIA opened the door to the attack.
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All this being said, this is very much a micro view of the attack, focusing on a handful of people and their personal decisions. Though the wider historical context is roughly painted in, by the end the book largely boils down to a good guy vs bad guy story—which is very fun to read, of course, but not necessarily the best way to approach this historical turning-point. But it would be unfair to ask Wright to do everything at once. What he has set out to do—write the story of the people directly responsible for 9/11—he has done, with considerably aplomb. I certainly learned a great deal.

Now, twenty years later, it is disturbing to consider how incredibly successful the attack turned out to be. It was Bin Laden’s express goal to prompt a U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, which he thought would be just as costly and unsuccessful as the U.S.S.R. invasion. It is clear that he was correct. We even threw in another military debacle (Iraq), free of charge. Hopefully, this does not mean that America will meet the same fate as the Soviet Union. Time will tell.

As a person that rates books on enjoyment I still feel very odd trying to rate and review nonfiction reads. I did read this as an audiobook, and I found myself heavily engaged from the very beginning. Wright manages to weave together a half-century of history in a way that I found thoroughly digestible and enjoying to read about. Obviously, the book chronicles a number of tragedies on the lead up to 9/11, and those were appropriately hard to read about, but it was information that I had never known and as I've said, was delivered in a way that really resonated with me. I probably couldn't recommend a read more, and I'm definitely looking forward to picking up the rest of Wright's work as soon as possible.

يقتبس هذا الكتاب عنوانه من الآية الكريمة "أينما تكونوا يدرككم الموت ولو كنتم في بروج مشيدة"، يقدم فيه تفاصيل أحداث سبتمبر التي هزت العالم بمفاجأة غيرت مسار التاريخ. وقد فاز مؤلفه الصحافي لورانس رايت بجائزة بوليتزر العالمية. كناب لا غنى عنه لكل مهتم بمجال التاريخ والسياسة.

The author spent five years interviewing people throughout the Middle East and United States, examining the events leading up to September 11th, 2001, and portions of this book have appeared in The New Yorker over the past couple of years. The overall book is a rare combination of gripping story-telling and thoughtful perspective.

Where the book really shines is the personal, political and religious insight that it gives into motivations of the terrorists, as well as the American bureaucracy and intelligence agencies that failed to stop them. It describes the experience of Sayyid Qutb, the intellectual father of the Muslim Brotherhood, and how his experience in 1940's America left him radicalized; the privileged upbringings of Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri, and their subsequent radicalization in the Soviet-Afghan and Egyptian prisons, respectively. Many of the eventual hijackers and terrorists are described in rich stories from their families and acquaintances, to develop a picture of why many well-educated and affluent youth join Islamic jihad movements.

As the terrorist movements grow in momentum and scope, the book also describes the missed clues and complacency of the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities to stop Al-Qaeda, despite the bombings of the U.S. embassies and the U.S. Cole. Again, the interactions between FBI and CIA, including the driven and complex FBI agent John O'Neill, counter-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke, Ali Soufan, and others, show how much personal histories, perspectives, and relationships affect their practical and political effectiveness.

Other reviews can be found here.