As a person who has long tried to understand how this person could be a part of the horrible things he did, this book is very revealing. Through the use of first-hand accounts from people who interacted with bin Laden at different phases of his life, the reader sees how a person very strict muslim views are radicalized to the point where killing innocent people becomes a real option. Mr. Bergen's work is pretty rigorous and he's to be commended for it.

I purchased the audio version of this book and I thought he did a good job, although I could have done without some of the inflection he used to differentiate between Bergen's words and the first-hand experiences of those interviewed.

I enjoyed the contents of this book, it is very informative. Peter Bergen gets into deep detail regarding O. Bin Laden's past and whereabouts before 9/11. However, sometimes I felt it had too much detail that didn't really had to be included in the book. One thing is for sure, Peter Bergen is the journalist to ask about O. Bin Laden. He has credibility.

I listened to this as an audio CD. This method would of course be better since writting verbatim the way people talk is always hard to read. Just read one of the speeches that Bush makes to see the difference.

Peter Bergen is a journalist, so it is not surprising that this book is a collection of brief interviews or quotes rather than one long narrative. The interviews are arranged chronologically, with some comments by Bergen interspersed to make a more cohesive and readable book. Bergen has clearly done his homework, and this book provides the reader with a good understanding of who Bin Laden is and where he came from. Now if Bergen could just tell us where to find Bin Laden today . . .

Peter Bergen is a journalist, so it is not surprising that this book is a collection of brief interviews or quotes rather than one long narrative. The interviews are arranged chronologically, with some comments by Bergen interspersed to make a more cohesive and readable book. Bergen has clearly done his homework, and this book provides the reader with a good understanding of who Bin Laden is and where he came from. Now if Bergen could just tell us where to find Bin Laden today . . .

A good read. Learn all about osama,this is something the government think tanks, should have done. From a very rich family with a good name to the depths of evil. When you think of evil, think of osama and hitler in the same thought.

Peter Bergen is a journalist well known for his knowledge of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Here he presents an "oral" history by piecing together documents and interviews into what he considers a narrative whole. For the most part there is nothing new here that hasn't already been out in the public domain. And there is very little analysis. It is basically a group of documents strung together with commentary from Bergen.

For me, this style just doesn't work. It's not a very pleasant reading experience. And while the narrative hangs together well - Bergen would have been better off to write a narrative history of bin Laden with deeper analysis. That would have taken a bit more time and work to complete, but it would have served the reader much better.

Peter Bergen is a journalist well known for his knowledge of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Here he presents an "oral" history by piecing together documents and interviews into what he considers a narrative whole. For the most part there is nothing new here that hasn't already been out in the public domain. And there is very little analysis. It is basically a group of documents strung together with commentary from Bergen.

For me, this style just doesn't work. It's not a very pleasant reading experience. And while the narrative hangs together well - Bergen would have been better off to write a narrative history of bin Laden with deeper analysis. That would have taken a bit more time and work to complete, but it would have served the reader much better.

This is quite a superb composition of the statements of others about Bin Laden, interspersed with very credible observations and conclusion by Peter Bergen.

The book opens with a cast of characters and ends with a "where are they now" listing. It also provides a timeline, but a limitation of this book is that it focuses on Bin Laden alone.

I have a number of notes from this excellent book:

1) The 1967 war in which Israel won was vital in showing the Arabs that it was their own inept and corrupt regimes that were leaving the Zionists in power. Also this book, at the end, where the Sykes Picot 1916 agreement highlighted in the Lawrence of Arabia epic movie, is clearly identified by Bin Laden as the start of the current "crusade" against Islam.

2) Bin Laden was a shy and polite, very religious person with a good education--the classic revolutionary (contrary to conventional wisdom, the rebels are the smart ones that see through the facades).

3) The 1979 invasion by Saudi forces to recapture the Al Haram mosque radicalized Bin Laden, as did the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The writings of Egyptian Sayyid Qutb on Islam as a complete way of life, when COMBINED with the corrupt and often decadent lifestyles of the Saudi, Egyptian, and other Arab rules, were in tandem a foundation for the radicalization of youth across the region.

4) The Pakistani cleric Abdullah Azzam was a major influence and enabler for jihadists seeking to fight the Soviets by entering via Pakistan, and the clearly untold story, in this book or any other, is the deep and constant relations between the Pakistani intelligence service, the Taliban, and Bin Laden.

5) In Afghanistan the back story is Bin Laden the theocrat versus Massoud the tolerant secularist in the Northern Alliance.

6) Soviet invasion of Afghanistan produced 6 million refugees, half to Pakistan and half to Iran.

7) The open sources of information available on Bin Laden and anti-Israel and anti-us plans are legion, and the author is extremely effective in cataloging all of the overt information that the U.S. Intelligence Community simply ignored from 1988, when the Commandant of the Marine Corps and I first made terrorism, and the use of open sources to understand terrorism, a national issue.

8) In 1996 Jamal Al Fadl walked in to a US Embassy (probably Sudan) with plans for attacks on US by Bin Laden, and also in 1996 Bin Laden announced on CNN, ABC News and in Al Jazeera that he was declaring war on the US. My comment: in the US, only Steve Emerson ("American Jihad") and Yossef Bodansky "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America") took the declaration seriously.

9) Clinton and Bush BOTH were happy to deal with the Taliban, and the Taliban understood that the Americans, regardless of party, wanted a pipeline from Caspian energy to Pakistan (rather naively assuming Pakistan would be able to protect it), as well as bases against China and Iran.

10) This book makes it clear that every time George W. Bush talks about them attacking us for our way of life he is simply demonstrating either his idiocy or his hypocrisy. Bin Laden, over and over and over again, has specified Israeli and US behaviors, actions, and policies as the basis for his challenge.

11) In 1998 US rebuked Taliban and Bin Laden raised the ante, also focusing on the jailed Sheikh Abdel Rahman, the only religious figure to have blessed Bin Laden's lay fatwa with a commanding fatwa of his own. This individual, in US custody, has inspired violence from 1981 onwards, and US appears to have not understood his potency.

12) Quote on page 211: Zawahiri was to Osama Bin Laden what Karl Rove is to the White House."

13) Bin Laden explicitly cites Nagasaki and Hiroshima as justifications for targeting US civilians. While the author of this book discounts Bin Laden's having nuclear suitcase bombs, he acknowledges that nuclear waste is easily acquired.

14) On 10 June 1998 ABC aired an exclusive interview with Bin Laden and introduced him as the wan who had declared war on the US. No one noticed. (Steve Emerson's PBS broadcast in 1994 also got blown off).

15) The book toasts the Clinton Administration for both incompetence at getting Bin Laden (but then, the Saudis tried to assassinate Bin Laden several times and also failed), and for lionizing Bin Laden with the Tomahawk missile strike (which another book I have reviewed says included several that did not explode and enriched Bin Laden with $10 million from their sale to the Chinese).

16) The author recounts Bin Laden's illnesses witnessed by others as being Soviet gas impact on breathing, back pain, low blood pressure, foot wound, and NOT kidney failure.

17) Al Qaeda started looking for WMD after they noticed US beating that drum, and probably got their first chemicals from Uzbeckistan.

18) First references to airplanes attacking buildings were in Egyptian press 12 Aug 00.

19) Cheney and Franks both lied to US public about Bin Laden not being at Tora Bora (see my reviews of "JAWBREAKER" and "First In").

20) Al Qaeda's general guidance to all is to first, cause the West pain, and second, seek to arouse all Muslims.

21) Iraq is teaching foreign fighters and Iraqis who will likely become foreign fighters elsewhere, how to use IEDs, suicide bombs, and urban warfare against the West elsewhere.

Bottom line: has we stayed in Afghanistan, and dropped Rangers on Bin Laden as he walked from Tora Bora to Pakistan, it would have been "game over," and even if we had not caught him, he would have been marginalized. The author concludes that everything the US has done, both in the Clinton and the current Administrations, has served to empower Bin Laden and inspire millions of others to support terrorism as a tactic against the Israel, the US, the West, and the corrupt Arab regimes.

This is quite a superb composition of the statements of others about Bin Laden, interspersed with very credible observations and conclusion by Peter Bergen.

The book opens with a cast of characters and ends with a "where are they now" listing. It also provides a timeline, but a limitation of this book is that it focuses on Bin Laden alone.

I have a number of notes from this excellent book:

1) The 1967 war in which Israel won was vital in showing the Arabs that it was their own inept and corrupt regimes that were leaving the Zionists in power. Also this book, at the end, where the Sykes Picot 1916 agreement highlighted in the Lawrence of Arabia epic movie, is clearly identified by Bin Laden as the start of the current "crusade" against Islam.

2) Bin Laden was a shy and polite, very religious person with a good education--the classic revolutionary (contrary to conventional wisdom, the rebels are the smart ones that see through the facades).

3) The 1979 invasion by Saudi forces to recapture the Al Haram mosque radicalized Bin Laden, as did the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The writings of Egyptian Sayyid Qutb on Islam as a complete way of life, when COMBINED with the corrupt and often decadent lifestyles of the Saudi, Egyptian, and other Arab rules, were in tandem a foundation for the radicalization of youth across the region.

4) The Pakistani cleric Abdullah Azzam was a major influence and enabler for jihadists seeking to fight the Soviets by entering via Pakistan, and the clearly untold story, in this book or any other, is the deep and constant relations between the Pakistani intelligence service, the Taliban, and Bin Laden.

5) In Afghanistan the back story is Bin Laden the theocrat versus Massoud the tolerant secularist in the Northern Alliance.

6) Soviet invasion of Afghanistan produced 6 million refugees, half to Pakistan and half to Iran.

7) The open sources of information available on Bin Laden and anti-Israel and anti-us plans are legion, and the author is extremely effective in cataloging all of the overt information that the U.S. Intelligence Community simply ignored from 1988, when the Commandant of the Marine Corps and I first made terrorism, and the use of open sources to understand terrorism, a national issue.

8) In 1996 Jamal Al Fadl walked in to a US Embassy (probably Sudan) with plans for attacks on US by Bin Laden, and also in 1996 Bin Laden announced on CNN, ABC News and in Al Jazeera that he was declaring war on the US. My comment: in the US, only Steve Emerson ("American Jihad") and Yossef Bodansky "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America") took the declaration seriously.

9) Clinton and Bush BOTH were happy to deal with the Taliban, and the Taliban understood that the Americans, regardless of party, wanted a pipeline from Caspian energy to Pakistan (rather naively assuming Pakistan would be able to protect it), as well as bases against China and Iran.

10) This book makes it clear that every time George W. Bush talks about them attacking us for our way of life he is simply demonstrating either his idiocy or his hypocrisy. Bin Laden, over and over and over again, has specified Israeli and US behaviors, actions, and policies as the basis for his challenge.

11) In 1998 US rebuked Taliban and Bin Laden raised the ante, also focusing on the jailed Sheikh Abdel Rahman, the only religious figure to have blessed Bin Laden's lay fatwa with a commanding fatwa of his own. This individual, in US custody, has inspired violence from 1981 onwards, and US appears to have not understood his potency.

12) Quote on page 211: Zawahiri was to Osama Bin Laden what Karl Rove is to the White House."

13) Bin Laden explicitly cites Nagasaki and Hiroshima as justifications for targeting US civilians. While the author of this book discounts Bin Laden's having nuclear suitcase bombs, he acknowledges that nuclear waste is easily acquired.

14) On 10 June 1998 ABC aired an exclusive interview with Bin Laden and introduced him as the wan who had declared war on the US. No one noticed. (Steve Emerson's PBS broadcast in 1994 also got blown off).

15) The book toasts the Clinton Administration for both incompetence at getting Bin Laden (but then, the Saudis tried to assassinate Bin Laden several times and also failed), and for lionizing Bin Laden with the Tomahawk missile strike (which another book I have reviewed says included several that did not explode and enriched Bin Laden with $10 million from their sale to the Chinese).

16) The author recounts Bin Laden's illnesses witnessed by others as being Soviet gas impact on breathing, back pain, low blood pressure, foot wound, and NOT kidney failure.

17) Al Qaeda started looking for WMD after they noticed US beating that drum, and probably got their first chemicals from Uzbeckistan.

18) First references to airplanes attacking buildings were in Egyptian press 12 Aug 00.

19) Cheney and Franks both lied to US public about Bin Laden not being at Tora Bora (see my reviews of "JAWBREAKER" and "First In").

20) Al Qaeda's general guidance to all is to first, cause the West pain, and second, seek to arouse all Muslims.

21) Iraq is teaching foreign fighters and Iraqis who will likely become foreign fighters elsewhere, how to use IEDs, suicide bombs, and urban warfare against the West elsewhere.

Bottom line: has we stayed in Afghanistan, and dropped Rangers on Bin Laden as he walked from Tora Bora to Pakistan, it would have been "game over," and even if we had not caught him, he would have been marginalized. The author concludes that everything the US has done, both in the Clinton and the current Administrations, has served to empower Bin Laden and inspire millions of others to support terrorism as a tactic against the Israel, the US, the West, and the corrupt Arab regimes.

One hesitates to give five stars to anything, because no book is perfect (4 and a half stars?). Nonetheless, Bergen's book is a convincing and well-documented account of Osama bin Laden, his youth, his developing radical outlook, set within the context of his family, and his major infuences - such as Abdullah Azzam and Ayman al Zawahiri. Anyone seeking to comprehend bin Laden should be pleased with this work. Bergen portrays bin Laden without glamorizing or demonizing, but showing bin Laden for what he is.

I had never heard this French phrase until it was introduced in this book by Peter Bergen. It means "to understand all is to pardon [or forgive] all." The sentiment appeals to me intellectually, even though I don't agree with it. I more agree with the phrase you must to understand your enemy to be better able to defeat him.

I think it helps to know that Osama fasts every Monday and Thursday, that he arises before sunrise every day for prayer in a private mosque, that he prays five times a day, that he listens to no music, watches no television except the news, and he keeps no photographs or paintings of any type. It helps to know that he has four wives but that he has only divorced one of them.

It helps to know that he believes his father's generation is weak and that his constant refrain to his followers is "Unless we, the new generation, change and become stronger and more educated and more dedicated, we will never reclaim Palestine."

It helps to know that he counsels his followers not to wear shorts or short sleeve shirts. It helps to know that he is soft spoken and seldom "preaches", preferring to lead by example. It helps to know that his followers tend to follow the example he sets.

It helps to know that he reveres his father, a one-eyed laborer who started a construction empire that built the mosques at Islam's three most holy sites, Mecca, Medina, and the Dome of the Rock (which he deliberately bid at below cost, donating a large portion of the construction money). It helps to know that Osama was enraged when the Saudi Government drove tanks into the mosque at Mecca. The tank treads desecrated the building his father had built.

It helps to know that his father had his private jet take him to all three holy sites in a single day, so he could pray at each, and that he did this twice a month.

It helps to know that when Osama entered his father's road contstruction business, he worked from dawn to sunset in the desert, pausing only to have lunch with the workers. He was dedicated to being know as a worker, not as the spoiled son of a rich and powerful businessman.

How does knowing some of Osama's personal background help? When you know that Osama doesn't listen to music because it is forbidden, you understand the depth of John Walker Lindh's committment to Islam when he destroyed his album collection. When you know that Osama forbids homosexuality you understand Lindh's rejection of his father's committment to the gay lifestyle, and the younger Lindh's decision to leave California and study in Yemen. It also helps you understand why Lindh joined the Taliban and chose to fight against the U.S. when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan.

When you know that Osama keeps "no graven image" you understand why Muslims rioted at the depiction of Mohammad in a series of Dutch cartoons. Depiction of the Prophet violates the Second Commandment against making a graven image of anything on earth.

Other cult figures, like Hitler, have been dedicated to austere personal lives. Hitler was a vegetarian, non-smoker, anti-hunter, and animal rights activist. You may not believe any of those things about him, but they appear to be true. These traits were part of his mystique.

Other reviewers have critized this book's literary failings. Whatever literary failings it has are common to oral histories which are, by nature, anecdotal. I would rather praise this book's educational value, which is great.

I doubt that you will be disappointed.