STEVE COLL

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 war-shopping 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 Osama''s violence, the family''s involvement in the United States proved to be narrow and brittle. Among the many memorable figures that cross these pages is Osama''s older brother, Salem-a 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 Salem''s father, Mohamed bin Laden, is another force in the narrative-an 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 story''s heart lies an immigrant family''s attempt to adapt simultaneously to Saudi Arabia''s puritanism and America''s myriad temptations. The family generation to which Osama belonged-twenty-five brothers and twenty-nine sisters-had 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 mores-a 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.

The Bin Ladens are shrouded in secrecy, living in one of the most closed, unaccountable countries on earth. Little has been known about the world that created Osama -- until now. In this gripping account prizewinning journalist Steve Coll has interviewed those closest to the family who rose from Yemeni peasants to jetsetting millionaires in two generations. In doing so, he reveals a Saudi Arabia torn between religious purity and the temptations of the West, telling a story of oil, money, power, patronage and dangerous cultural extremes.

From twice-Pulitzer-Prize-winning author Steve Coll comes "Private Empire", winner of the Ft/Goldman Sachs business book of the year award 2012. The oil giant ExxonMobil makes more money annually than the GDP of most countries; has greater sway than US embassies abroad; and spends more on lobbying than any other corporation. Yet to outsiders it is a mystery. In "Private Empire", award-winning reporter Steve Coll tells the truth about the world's most powerful and shadowy company. From the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, via Moscow, the swamps of the Niger Delta and the halls of Congress, he reveals a story of dictators, oligarchs, civil war, blackmail, secrecy and ruthlessness. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and newly declassified documents, this is a chilling portrait of unchecked power. Reviews: "Magisterial ...a revealing history of our time". ("New York Review of Books"). "Meticulous, multi-angled and valuable...Coll's prose sweeps the earth like an Imax camera". (Dwight Garner, "The New York Times"). "Jaw-dropping reading". ("Kirkus Reviews"). "The definitive work on its subject ...at every stop there are vivid anecdotes, sharp insights and telling details". (Ed Crooks, "Financial Times"). About the author: Steve Coll is the author of the "New York Times" bestseller "The Bin Ladens". He is president of the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy institute headquartered in Washington, D.C., and a staff writer for "The New Yorker". He won a Pulitzer prize for explanatory journalism while working at the "Washingon Post". He is the author of six other books, including the bestseller "Ghost Wars", which won him a second Pulitzer prize. He lives in Washington and New York.

Steve Colls The Bin Ladens is the history of a family and its fortune: of how a one-eyed illiterate, Mohammed Bin Laden, from a harsh region of Yemen, went as a young man to the new, oil-rich country of Saudi Arabia and with remarkable speed became a vital figure in its development, building great mosques and highways and making himself and his many children into millionaires. It is the story of the Saudi royal family, who the Bin Ladens served so loyally, and without whose capricious favour they would have been nothing. And it is the story of the revolutions in a modern Islam awash with oil money: of a country founded on extreme religious purity becoming mired in the temptations of the West. In only two generations the men and women of the Bin Laden family moved from a desert canyon in Yemen to luxury jets, yachts and private compounds around the world. The religious and cultural pressures could not have been greater. This resulted in everything from enthusiasm for the West, exemplified by Osamas brother Salem, a free-living pilot and adventurer, to an overwhelming determination to destroy it.

Steve Colls The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century is the groundbreaking history of a family and its fortune. It chronicles a young illiterate Yemeni bricklayer, Mohamed Bin Laden, who went to the new, oil-rich country of Saudi Arabia and quickly became a vital figure in its development, building great mosques and highways and making himself and many of his children millionaires. It is also a story of the Saudi royal family, whom the Bin Ladens served loyally and without whose capricious favor they would have been nothing. And it is a story of tensions and contradictions in a country founded on extreme religious purity, which then became awash in oil money and dazzled by the temptations of the West. In only two generations the Bin Ladens moved from a famine-stricken desert canyon to luxury jets, yachts, and private compounds around the world, even going into business with Hollywood celebrities. These religious and cultural gyrations resulted in everything from enthusiasm for Americaexemplified by Osamas free-living pilot brother Salemto an overwhelming determination to destroy it.

The news-breaking book that has sent shockwaves through the White House, Ghost Wars is the most accurate and revealing account yet of the CIA's secret involvement in al-Qaeada's evolution. Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll has spent years reporting from the Middle East, accessed previously classified government files and interviewed senior US officials and foreign spymasters. Here he gives the full inside story of the CIA's covert funding of an Islamic jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, explores how this sowed the seeds of bin Laden's rise, traces how he built his global network and brings to life the dramatic battles within the US government over national security. Above all, he lays bare American intelligence's continual failure to grasp the rising threat of terrrorism in the years leading to 9/11 - and its devastating consequences.

Looming large in the minds of the American people since the devastation of September 11, 2001 - and perplexing their political analysts, media, and elected leaders - are two unsettling questions: To what extent did America's best intelligence analysts grasp the rising threat of Islamist radicalism? And, Who tried to stop bin Laden and why did they fail? Later this month, and for the first time, Steve Coll, managing editor of The Washington Post, provides answers in a news-breaking account of the CIA's involvement in the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and gave rise to bin Laden's al Qaeda. For nearly the past quarter century, while most Americans were unaware, Afghanistan has been the playing field for intense covert operations by U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies-invisible wars that sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks and that provide its context. From the Soviet invasion in 1979 through the summer of 2001, the CIA, KGB, Pakistan's IST, and Saudi Arabia's General Intelligence Department all operated directly and secretly in Afghanistan. They primed Afghan factions with cash and weapons, secretly trained guerrilla forces, funded propaganda, and manipulated politics. In the midst of these struggles bin Laden conceived and then built his global organization. Pulitzer Prize-winner Coll provides the only comprehensive account to date of the secret history of the CIA's role in Afghanistan, including its covert program against Soviet troops from 1979 to 1989, and examines the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998. Based on extensive firsthand accounts, Ghost Wars is the inside story that goes well beyond anything previously published on U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, chronicling the roles of midlevel CIA officers, their Afghan allies, and such top spy masters as Bill Casey, Saudi Arabia's Prince Turki al Faisal, and George Tenet; heated debates within the American government; and the often poisonous, mistrustful relations between the CIA and foreign intelligence agencies.

Winner of the the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-FictionSpellbinding ... a magisterial account of the great tragedy of our age ... it is a classicEvening StandardIn the finest traditions of American investigative journalismThe TimesSpectacular ... makes Bourne movies pale in comparisonFinancial TimesFrom the Pulitzer Prize winning of the acclaimed Ghost Wars, this is the full story of Americas grim involvement in the affairs of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2016. In the wake of the terrible shock of 9/11, the C.I.A. scrambled to work out how to destroy Bin Laden and his associates. The C.I.A. had long familiarity with Afghanistan and had worked closely with the Taliban to defeat the Soviet Union there. A tangle of assumptions, old contacts, favours and animosities were now reactivated. Superficially the invasion was quick and efficient, but Bin Ladens successful escape, together with that of much of the Taliban leadership, and a catastrophic failure to define the limits of NATOs mission in a tough, impoverished country the size of Texas, created a quagmire which lasted many years.At the heart of the problem lay Directorate S, a highly secretive arm of the Pakistan state which had its own views on the Taliban and Afghanistans place in a wider competition for influence between Pakistan, India and China, and which assumed that the U.S.A. and its allies would soon be leaving. Steve Colls remarkable new book tells a powerful, bitter story of just how badly foreign policy decisions can go wrong and of many lives lost.

Riveting ... the most psychologically detailed portrait of the brutal 9/11 mastermind yet ... uses the prism of one family to examine the mind-boggling, culture-rocking effects that sudden oil wealth had on Saudi ArabiaThe New York TimesLittle has been known about the world that created Osama Bin Laden - until now. In this gripping account prizewinning journalist Steve Coll has interviewed those closest to the family who rose from Yemeni peasants to jetsetting millionaires in two generations. In doing so, he reveals a Saudi Arabia torn between religious purity and the temptations of the West, telling a story of oil, money, power, patronage and dangerous cultural extremes.

Steve Colls Private Empire is winner of the FT/GOLDMAN SACHS BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR AWARD 2012. In this prize-winning book, the author of Ghost Wars and The Bin Ladens investigates the notoriously mysterious ExxonMobil Corporation and the secrets of the oil industry In many of the nations where it operates, ExxonMobil has a greater sway than that of the US embassy, its annual revenues are larger than the total economic activity in most countries and in Washington it spends more on lobbying than any other corporation. Yet despite its outsized influence, it is to outsiders a black box.Private Empire begins with the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989 and closes with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Steve Colls narrative spans the globe, taking readers to Moscow, impoverished African capitals, Indonesia and elsewhere as ExxonMobil carries out its activities against a backdrop of blackmail threats, kidnapping, civil wars, and high-stakes struggles at the Kremlin. In the US, Coll goes inside ExxonMobils ruthless Washington lobbying offices and its corporate headquarters in Irving, Texas, where top executives oversee a bizarre corporate culture of discipline and secrecy.Private Empire is the masterful result of Steve Colls indefatigable reporting, from the halls of Congress to the oil-laden swamps of the Niger Delta; previously classified U.S. documents; heretofore unexamined court records; and many other sources.

The news-breaking book that has sent schockwaves through the White House, Ghost Wars is the most accurate and revealing account yet of the CIAs secret involvement in al-Qaeadas evolution.Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll has spent years reporting from the Middle East, accessed previously classified government files and interviewed senior US officials and foreign spymasters. Here he gives the full inside story of the CIAs covert funding of an Islamic jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, explores how this sowed the seeds of bn Ladens rise, traces how he built his global network and brings to life the dramatic battles within the US government over national security. Above all, he lays bare American intelligences continual failure to grasp the rising threat of terrrorism in the years leading to 9/11 - and its devastating consequences.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning and bestselling author of Ghost Wars and The Achilles Trap,a trek across a socially and politically damaged South Asia Bestselling author Steve Coll is one of the preeminent journalists of the twenty-first century. His last two books, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars and New York Times bestseller The Bin Ladens, have been praised for their creative insight and complex yet compelling narratives-and have put him on par with journalists such as the legendary Bob Woodward. Now, for the first time ever, the paperback edition of On the Grand Trunk Road is finally available, revised and updated with new material. Focusing on Colls journeys in conflict-ridden India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Afghanistan as a bureau chief for The Washington Post, On the Grand Trunk Road reveals a little-seen area of the world where violence, corruption, and greed have had devastating effects on South Asians from all walks of life.

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2024****A BEST BOOK OF 2024 BY THE NEW YORKER** From the Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author of Ghost Wars, the inside story of Americas long and ruinous relationship with Saddam HusseinThe Achilles Trap masterfully untangles the people, ploys of power and geopolitics that led to Americas disastrous war with Iraq and, for the first time, details Americas fundamental miscalculations during its ruinous, decades-long relationship with Saddam Hussein.Beginning with Saddams rise to power in 1979 and the birth of Iraqs secret nuclear weapons programme, Steve Coll traces Saddams motives through understanding his inner circle. He brings to life the diplomats, scientists, family members and generals who had no choice but to defer to their leader - a leader directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, as well as the torture or imprisonment of many more. This was a man whose reasoning was impossible to reduce to a simple explanation, and the CIA and successive presidential administrations failed to grasp critical nuances in his paranoia, resentments and inconsistencies - even when the stakes were incredibly high.Using unpublished and underreported sources, interviews with surviving participants, and Saddams own transcripts and audio files, The Achilles Trap is a remarkable picture of a dictator who was convinced the world was out to get him and acted accordingly. A work of great historical significance, it is the definitive account of how corruptions of power, lies of diplomacy and vanity - on both sides - led to avoidable errors of statecraft: ones that would enact immeasurable human suffering and forever change our political landscape.

¿Bin Laden es sólo el terrorista más buscado del planeta? ¿Qué sabemos de su familia? Los lazos familiares del terrorista más buscado y los negocios distribuidos por el mundo por el clan Bin Laden es el objeto de investigacion del norteamericano Steve Coll, que documenta con todo lujo de detalles sus componentes y la variada trama de empresas, no pocas de ellas norteamericanas, que ha creado en todo el planeta.El autor muestra con claridad el paralelismo entre la evolucion de la familia Bin Laden y de Arabia Saudi asi como una investigacion impecable y de gran rigor . Dirigido a estudiosos y estudiantes de historia, investigadores y periodistas especializados como al publico en general. Se lee como una novela: intrigas palaciegas, luchas por el poder...