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

Lawrence Wright examines the origins of al-Qaeda and the events that led to the September 11 attacks. The book concentrates on the people involved, their motives and personalities. It begins with Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian religious scholar who visited the United States in the late 1940s, and includes portraits of Ayman al-Zawahiri and, at greatest length, Osama bin Laden.

Wright also follows Americans working in counter-terrorism, among them Richard A. Clarke, Michael Scheuer and the FBI’s John P. O’Neill, and describes how poor co-operation between the FBI, the CIA and other agencies hampered them.

The plot itself is not described in much detail.