Bin Ladens: Oil, Money, Terrorism and the Secret Saudi World

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. This title 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.

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.

'Enthralling ! explains a great deal about the tentacles that run from Riyadh to touch a wider world, tentacles of corruption, ambition, hedonism and dislocation ! a classic saga' Observer 'A rich and fluent portrait of a family and a country and of their deeply conflicted relationship with America' Economist 'Grippingly told ! ought to be read by anyone who really wants to understand the origins of the current crisis' Los Angeles Times

Steve Coll is most recently the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller Ghost Wars. He also won a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism. He covered Afghanistan as the Washington Post's South Asia bureau chief between 1989 and 1992 and was the Post's managing editor from 1998 to 2004. He is now a staff writer for the New Yorker. He is the author of five books, including On the Grand Trunk Road and The Taking of Getty Oil. He lives with his wife and three children in Maryland.