Book Review: The Looming Tower

 

The Looming Tower is a book that was written by Lawrence Wright and initially published in 2006. The book serves as the source material for the series on Hulu of the same name. If you have seen the Hulu series you know that its focus was on the FBI and CIA infighting, lack of information sharing, and was largely set around John O'Neil and Ali Soufan. The book, on the other hand, focuses mainly on the rise of radical Islam and tells the story of how the various splintered groups eventually came together to form what would be Al-Qaeda. The first 200 pages or so are devoted solely to the history of the major events and players in that world and laid out how Osama bin Laden came to power and basically lost his fortune (he was nowhere near as wealthy as he was made out to be), and then managed to cobble together the force that would eventually attack the United States. Later in the book, much of what the focus of the Hulu series plays out, including a lot of detail about what the CIA and FBI did and did not know, how if they actually worked together instead of against each other, the 9-11 attacks could have very likely been averted.

The main part of the softcover version of the book is just over 400 pages. Then there is a glossary giving the backgrounds and current status of the major people mentioned throughout the book and endnotes that flesh out the details in the book. The only picky point on the notes is that they are not actually referenced in the book's text, so there is no way to easily match up the note with the part of the text it is referencing (for the handful of people who would care to do so). As was the case with the series, the book does not focus much on the events of 9-11 itself. While the book includes some detail about what was happening in and around the towers, that was relegated to just a part of the last chapter. The book finishes with the interrogation of Abu Jandal by Ali Soufan, which is pretty much the climax of the series. Overall, the book gives a good description of the backstory of what led up to the attacks and the reasoning and justifications the terrorists used for launching suicide attacks against innocent civilians. It also does a very good job of detailing some of the dysfunction of the government agencies that failed to put together pieces and tied threads that could have stopped the attacks from happening. It is definitely worth the read.