The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century | 
 enlarge | Author: Steve Coll
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $14.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  15 reviews
Sales Rank: 2755
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 688
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.1
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.7
ISBN: 1594201641
Dewey Decimal Number: 953.8052
EAN: 9781594201646
ASIN: 1594201641
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
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Condition: A great book in new condition, imperfection from publisher on top page side of binding! FREE TRACKING in US and email to you when shipped. Inquires welcomed and we want your complete satisfaction!
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Product Description
Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and author of the national bestseller Ghost Wars, Steve Coll presents the story of the Bin Laden familys rise to power and privilege, revealing new information to show how American influences changed the family and how one members rebellion changed America
The Bin Ladens rose from poverty to privilege; they loyally served the Saudi royal family for generationsand then one of their number changed history on September 11, 2001. Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Coll tells the epic story of the rise of the Bin Laden family and of the wildly diverse lifestyles of the generation to which Osama bin Laden belongs, and against whom he rebelled. Starting with the familys escape from famine at the beginning of the twentieth century through its jet-set era in America after the 1970s oil boom, and finally to the familys attempts to recover from September 11, The Bin Ladens unearths extensive new material about the family and its relationship with the United States, and provides a richly revealing and emblematic narrative of our globally interconnected times.
To a much greater extent than has been previously understood, the Bin Laden family owned an impressive share of the America upon which Osama ultimately declared warshopping centers, apartment complexes, luxury estates, privatized prisons in Massachusetts, corporate stocks, an airport, and much more. They financed Hollywood movies and negotiated over real estate with Donald Trump. They came to regard George H. W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Prince Charles as friends of their family. And yet, as was true of the larger relationship between the Saudi and American governments, when tested by Osamas violence, the familys involvement in the United States proved to be narrow and brittle.
Among the many memorable figures that cross these pages is Osamas older brother, Salema free-living, chainsmoking, guitar-strumming pilot, adventurer, and businessman who cavorted across America and Europe and once proposed marriage to four American and European girlfriends simultaneously, attempting to win a bet with the king of Saudi Arabia. Osama and Salems father, Mohamed bin Laden, is another force in the narrativean illiterate bricklayer who created the family fortune through perspicacity and wit, until his sudden death in an airplane crash in 1967, an accident caused by an error by his American pilot.
At the storys heart lies an immigrant familys attempt to adapt simultaneously to Saudi Arabias puritanism and Americas myriad temptations. The family generation to which Osama belongedtwenty-five brothers and twenty-nine sistershad to cope with intense change. Most of them were born into a poor society where religion dominated public life. Yet by the time they became young adults, these Bin Ladens found themselves bombarded by Western-influenced ideas about individual choice, by gleaming new shopping malls and international fashion brands, by Hollywood movies and changing sexual moresa dizzying world that was theirs for the taking, because they each received annual dividends that started in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. How they navigated these demands is an authentic, humanizing story of Saudi Arabia, America, and the sources of attraction and repulsion still present in the countries awkward embrace.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 10 more reviews...
Excellent work June 30, 2008
What an insight Mr. Coll gives to the Bin Laden family...I highly recommend this book!
 An eye opening account of this family and the last century of Saudi history June 30, 2008
Picked up this book after hearing the author interviewed on PBS. Given the family's aversion to publicity this represents an exhaustive effort to pry out detail. Coll tracks the family history from their humble beginnings in Yemen to the patriarch's rise in business association with the Saudi royal family, and to the present day. Usually after finishing a book this size I am ready to switch to something els, but at the end of this 575-page volume I found myself going back to reread the first few chapters. This held my interest and is worth the time.
Nothing much to add June 28, 2008
Peterson's review is very good and captures the essence of the book. There is a good deal of information about the Saudi Monarchy in this book that can fill out reading from other sources. It's a poignant story at times evoking the normal tragedies of life in the early deaths of Mohamed, the founder of the dynasty and his heir, Salem. Mr. Coll has a gift for narrative non-ficiton and weaves the constant theme of aviation into the Bin Laden story as well as the destructive side of their construction business. It is a fascinating study of the Bin Ladin family and of Saudi Arabia as it grew into the twentieth century. As he did with Ghost Wars, Mr. Coll has produced another great book.
I will plug Frontier of Faith here for a further study of where the battle formed and rages between Islam's radical arm and the West.
The Bin ladens June 23, 2008
Must read for all Americans, gives a detailed history on living and growing up in the Middle East, most American have little understanding fo the culture and lifestyle in these countries.
Must read for every American June 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Short and sweet, this is a book every American should read. It offers an insight to Saudi Arabia, the house of Al-Saud, the Bin Laden family, and the middle east as a whole. This book might be long, but it is an easy and enjoyable read.
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