This is a sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11. A ground-breaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault on America. The book achieves an unprecedented level of intimacy and insight by telling the story through the interweaving lives of four men; the two leaders of Al-Qaeda, Osama-Bin Laden and Aymen al-Zawahiri; the FBI’s counterterrorism chief, John O’Neill; and the former head of Saudi intelligence, Turk al-Faisal. As these lives unfold, we see revealed the cross-currents of modern Islam that helped to radicalize Zawahiri and Bin Laden. We learn much about Muslim terrorism from Wright.