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Title: Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror by Rohan Gunaratna ISBN: 0-425-19114-1 Publisher: Berkley Pub Group Pub. Date: 03 June, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.81 (16 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Promptly Returned It (slightly revised)
Comment: I bought this book with high hopes. I thought it might join the very small library of books that are authoritative accounts of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda which aren't tainted with conspiracy theories.
I credit the author for not producing a book that blames Al-Qaeda for the accidental crash of TWA 800 and does not link Terry Nichols with Ramzi Yousef to "prove" a hidden hand behind the Oklahoma City Bombing.
What I have to fault him and his editors for are errors that rise above the category of "typos." I encountered two in reading just ten pages and for me that was enough to conclude that "Inside Al-Qaeda" desperately needs a heavy editing job that it will hopefully receive in later editions. Perhaps then it can truly claim to be an in-depth analysis of the world's most dangerous terrorist organization:
Error Number 1: The author confuses "ulema" (Islamic scholars) with "ummah" (the community of believers).
Error Number 2: The author refers to twenty hijackers going to their deaths on September 11. Excuse me? I think there have been about a million news stories that state there were 19 hijackers on September 11. I'd like to think that if this book had received a serious edit, such an incredibly glaring error would have stuck out like a neon sign. If I were a teacher grading the author's book like an academic paper, I'd mark him down half a grade for making a mistake like that.
{I'd also like to briefly respond to the argument that a close reading of the book would have revealed that the author was including Zacharias Moussaoui when he referred to the "twenty" hijackers. That cannot be correct. On page 7 of the book, the author categorically states that twenty hijackers went willingly to their deaths. Moussaoui is very much alive. So he could not have been one of the "twenty" men who died.}
There are some people who will probably disagree with me about this book. They may very well consider it to be very well written. But given the prices we pay these days for books, I think we readers deserve ones prepared with great care and mistakes like the ones I've cited above put "Inside Al-Qaeda" outside that category.
(note: In 2003, a paperback edition came out. I was sorry to see that the author and the publishers had still not corrected the "twenty" hijackers mistake. One is left with the impression that they just did not care about that basic error and that is another indictment of this book.)
Rating: 5
Summary: A Necessary Supplement to the Evening News
Comment: (By Edward Trimnell, author of "Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One," ISBN: 1591133343)
"Inside Al Qaeda" tells the story of Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. If you watch CNN, you will already be familiar with much of the material in this book. However, the author puts the pieces together in an authoritative manner, providing additional commentary that is necessary in order to really understand Al Qaeda and the rise of militant Islam.
Gunaratna tells the story of an Osama Bin Laden who is resourceful, cunning, and willing to kill fellow Muslims as well as Christians and Jews in order to accomplish his aims. The author also reveals the self-serving motives behind so many of Bin Laden's actions. Bin Ladin became an outlaw following a rebuff from the leaders of his own country, who did not agree to entrust the security of Saudi Arabia to him following Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Bin Laden's sense of a personal mission, and his tendencies toward megalomania, are apparent throughout the book.
The book also contains many insights into the mindset of Bin Laden's followers. As a Westerner who had minimal knowledge of the Islamist movement, I found these sections to be particularly enlightening.
Rating: 1
Summary: Not the Best Book, Not the Best Writer
Comment: There have been some informed and insightful commentaries on the terrorism problem. This is not one of them. Gunaratna has no real background in Islamic studies or the Middle East and it shows. It might impress people who have no real knowledge of the terrorist problem, but it is likely only to mislead them. Gunaratna is a former intelligence officer for the Sri Lankan Government. With that war largely over, Gunaratna has jumped on the counter-terrorism bandwagon and is marketing himself as an expert on international terrorism. Whether you buy what he says here or elsewhere is up to you. Some of the inaccuracies in this book were highlighted in an article in the Australian newspaper The Age.
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Title: Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden by Peter l. Bergen ISBN: 0743234952 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 04 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Age of Sacred Terror by Daniel Benjamin, Steven Simon ISBN: 0375508597 Publisher: Random House Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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Title: Inside Terrorism by Bruce Hoffman ISBN: 0231114699 Publisher: Columbia University Press Pub. Date: 15 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, And Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It by John Miller, Michael Stone ISBN: 0786869003 Publisher: Hyperion Press Pub. Date: 14 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid ISBN: 0300089023 Publisher: Yale Univ Pr Pub. Date: 01 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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