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The Bin Ladens |
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| Book: Hardcover | 6.14 x 9.25in | 688 pages | ISBN 9781594201646 | 01 Apr 2008 | The Penguin Press | 18 - AND UP |
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View our feature on Steve Coll's
The Bin Ladens.
The rise and rise of the Bin Laden family is one of the great stories of the twentieth century; its repercussions have already deeply marked the twenty-first. Until now, however, it is a story that has never been fully told, as the Bin Ladens have successfully fended off attempts to understand the family circles from which Osama sprang. In this the family has been abetted by the kingdom it calls home, Saudi Arabia, one of the most closed societies on earth.
Steve Coll’s The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century is the groundbreaking history of a family and its fortune. It chronicles a young illiterate Yemeni bricklayer, Mohamed Bin Laden, who went to the new, oil-rich country of Saudi Arabia and quickly became a vital figure in its development, building great mosques and highways and making himself and many of his children millionaires. It is also a story of the Saudi royal family, whom the Bin Ladens served loyally and without whose capricious favor they would have been nothing. And it is a story of tensions and contradictions in a country founded on extreme religious purity, which then became awash in oil money and dazzled by the temptations of the West. In only two generations the Bin Ladens moved from a famine-stricken desert canyon to luxury jets, yachts, and private compounds around the world, even going into business with Hollywood celebrities. These religious and cultural gyrations resulted in everything from enthusiasm for America—exemplified by Osama’s free-living pilot brother Salem—to an overwhelming determination to destroy it.
The Bin Ladens is a meticulously researched, colorful, shocking, entertaining, and disturbing narrative of global integration and its limitations. It encapsulates the unsettling contradictions of globalization in the story of a single family who has used money, mobility, and technology to dramatically varied ends.
“A fascinating panorama . . . about a man and his family [and] the powerful impact they have made on our times.”
—The Washington Post
“Riveting . . . the most psychologically detailed portrait of the brutal 9/11 mastermind yet.”
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“Stunningly researched and grippingly told . . . [The Bin Ladens] ought to be read by anyone who really wants to understand the origins of the current crisis.”
—Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times
CODES Notable Books Council Award
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This month we kick off the seaon of summer reading with a thrilling selection of our hottest books of the year. And you'll receive 15% off these select titles by simply using coupon code SUMMER09 thru July 7th.
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