The Osama bin Laden I Know by Peter L. Bergen
The Osama bin Laden I Know by Peter L. Bergen
The Osama bin Laden I Know
An Oral History of al Qaeda's Leader
by Peter L. Bergen
Free Press, Simon & Schuster, 2006 [First Edition], ISBN 9780743278911, black and white photographic plates, hardcover with red cloth binding, dust-jacket
Near Fine Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, no inscriptions, dust-jacket shows minor edge and shelf wear with minor rubbing at edges (see photographs)
"No journalist knows more about Osama bin Laden than Peter Bergen. In 1997, well before bin Laden became a household name, Bergen met with him, and has since followed his activities closely. After an insightful introduction - in which Bergen recounts how, at their first meeting, bin Laden "presented himself as a soft-spoken cleric, rather than as the firebreathing leader of a global terrorist organisation" - Bergen stands aside to make way for the voices of dozens of people with firsthand, sometimes intimate experience with the al Qaeda leader.
How did Osama bin Laden transform himself from a shy, polite, middle-of-his-class schoolboy to commander of the world's most formidable terrorist organisation? Where was bin Laden on 9/11, and what was his reaction to it? How did he escape from Tora Bora? Is al Qaeda a top-down organisation or a loose ideological alliance? What is it about this man that draws hundreds of thousands of followers, and makes men willing to fly air-planes into buildings at his command? This definitive and engaging portrait gives the American public its first true, enduring insight into a man who has declared us his greatest enemy."