Overview

The world's leading expert on Osama bin Laden delivers for the first time the definitive biography of a man who set the course of American foreign policy for the 21st century, and whose ideological heirs we continue to battle today. In The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden, Peter Bergen provides the first reevaluation of the man responsible for precipitating America's long wars with al-Qaeda and its descendants, capturing bin Laden in all the dimensions of his life: as a family man, as a zealot, as a battlefield commander, as a terrorist leader, and as a fugitive. The book sheds light on his many contradictions: he was the son of a billionaire, yet insisted his family live like paupers. He adored his wives and children, depending on two of his wives, both of whom had PhDs, to make important strategic decisions. Yet he also brought ruin to his family. He was fanatically religious, yet willing to kill thousands of civilians in the name of Islam. He inspired deep loyalty yet, in the end, his bodyguards turned against him. And while he inflicted the most lethal act of mass murder in United States history, he failed to achieve any of his strategic goals. The lasting image we have of bin Laden in his final years is of an aging man with a graying beard watching old footage of himself, just another dad flipping through the channels with his remote. In the end, bin Laden died in a squalid suburban compound, far from the front lines of his holy war. And yet despite that unheroic denouement, his ideology lives on. Thanks to exclusive interviews with family members and associates, and documents unearthed only recently, Bergen's portrait of Osama will reveal for the first time who he really was and why he continues to inspire a new generation of jihadists.

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9781797126081

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Reviews

A compelling, nuanced portrait of America's erstwhile public enemy No. 1... Throughout, Bergen turns up revealing details and sharp arguments against received wisdom...Essential for anyone concerned with geopolitics, national security, and the containment of further terrorist actions. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Comprehensive, authoritative, and compelling. -- H. R. McMaster, New York Times bestselling author of Battlegrounds

A compelling, nuanced portrait of America's erstwhile public enemy No. 1... Throughout, Bergen turns up revealing details and sharp arguments against received wisdom...Essential for anyone concerned with geopolitics, national security, and the containment of further terrorist actions. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Comprehensive, authoritative, and compelling. -- H. R. McMaster, New York Times bestselling author of Battlegrounds

Author Information

Peter Bergen is the author of Holy War, Inc. and The Osama Bin Laden I Know, both named among the best nonfiction books of the year by The Washington Post. He is a contributing editor at The New Republic and has worked as a correspondent for National Geographic television, Discovery, and CNN. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Time, Vanity Fair, among other publications. James Langton, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, trained as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and later as a musician at the Guildhall School in London. He has worked in radio, film, and television, also appearing in theater in England and on Broadway. He is also a professional musician who led the internationally renowned Pasadena Roof Orchestra from 1996 to 2002.

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