The Terror Years: From al-Qaeda to the Islamic State

Written by Lawrence Wright

Narrated by Lawrence Wright and John H. Mayer

With the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright became generally acknowledged as one of our major journalists writing on terrorism in the Middle East. Here, in ten powerful pieces first published in The New Yorker, he recalls the path that terror in the Middle East has taken, from the rise of al-Qaeda in the 1990s to the recent beheadings of reporters and aid workers by ISIS.

The Terror Years draws on several articles he wrote while researching The Looming Tower, as well as many that he’s written since, following where and how al-Qaeda and its core cultlike beliefs have morphed and spread. They include a portrait of the “man behind bin Laden,” Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the tumultuous Egypt he helped spawn; an indelible impression of Saudi Arabia, a kingdom of silence under the control of the religious police; the Syrian film industry, at the time compliant at the edges but already exuding a feeling of the barely masked fury that erupted into civil war; the 2006–11 Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Gaza, a study in the disparate value of human lives. Other chapters examine al-Qaeda as it forms a master plan for its future, experiences a rebellion from within the organization, and spins off a growing web of worldwide terror. The American response is covered in profiles of two FBI agents and the head of the intelligence community. The book ends with a devastating piece about the capture and slaying by ISIS of four American journalists and aid workers, and our government’s failed response.
 
On the fifteenth anniversary of 9/11, The Terror Years is at once a unifying recollection of the roots of contemporary Middle Eastern terrorism, a study of how it has grown and metastasized, and, in the scary and moving epilogue, a cautionary tale of where terrorism might take us yet. 


With a Prologue read by the Author

AFP PHOTO/HO/ISIL 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
• Release date: Aug 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9780804165457

Lawrence Wright

Lawrence Wright es un prestigioso ensayista ganador de un Pulitzer, además de guionista y colaborador habitual de The New Yorker. Ha publicado tres ensayos en el sello Debate: La torre elevada, Los años del terror y Dios salve a Texas. El día del fin del mundo, un thriller médico escrito antes de la pandemia de la Covid-19, es su primera novela y los derechos de traducción se han vendido a más de diez idiomas.

[tuckerresearch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A collection of Wright's essays on terror published in 2016. The first three chapters are, basically, part of his award-winning The Looming Tower, covering al-Zawahiri, John O'Niell, and Ali Soufan. The rest of the chapters cover other things, namely: Saudi society, the Spanish al-Qaeda attacks, Syrian film directors, al-Zarqawi and Iraq, Michael McConnell, Dr. Fadl's switch on jihad, Gaza, and Western hostages taken by groups in Syria. Some chapters are light, like the Saudi one, others gripping and sad, like the ones on the captives. Others are straight reportage. The most interesting to me what "The Rebellion Within" on Dr. Fadl's philosophical support for jihad, then his philosophical retreat from jihad. An epilogue rounds things out. A few things. In this book, Wright's liberal tendencies come out a bit more, with a few side swipes at the Bush administration ("The 2003 invasion of Iraq by U.S. and coalition partners stands as one of the greatest blunders in American history" [p. xiii].) But, he lays ISIS at Bush's feet, not Obama's. And even though Obama does not come across very well in the chapter on American hostages, none of his actions is labeled "one of the greatest blunders." I wonder what Wright would write after Trump's policies (as of August 2020) rolled back and defeated ISIS, kept us out of a quagmire in Syria, left a mostly stable Iraq, hamstrung Iran, and normalized relations between Israel and the U.A.E. (with Saudi Arabia and others likely to follow). I bet it wouldn't be flattering, as liberal Austinites like Wright can't see past their conceits, biases, and hatreds. I would have liked to have seen a chapter on the hunt for and death of Bin Laden, which only received brief mention. The book has the air of a collection of essays, being thrown together. No source notes this time. A decent read, though incomplete.