New Book: “The Bin Ladens” by Steve Coll

 Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars, has a new book about the history of the Bin Laden family.  The reviews I have read also suggest that it will be an interesting look at the recent history of the Sa’udi royal family, and in fact the whole Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, as you might expect given the prominence of the Bin Laden family in the KSA and its close links to the Al-Sa’ud. I hope to have a review up momentarily of The Siege of Mecca by Yaroslav Trofimov.  The most interesting aspects of that book were its look at a specific time in the Muslim world, right after the Iranian revolution with the Cold War still ongoing, but prior to the Iran-Iraq War and everything that followed, along with a look at the interaction of the scholarly establishment of KSA and how it interacted with the Royal Family in ruling that country.  Saudi Arabia is of course a deeply important country to all Muslims and, of course to the world economy.  Like any country and people, it has many positive aspects. As we all should know, however, it is a profoundly disturbed (and disturbing) society from top to bottom.  Because of its importance to Muslims and to the world, the reality of the society cannot be ignored, but it must be studied, understood, and then (with God’s permission and help) changed.  Of course, there is little that the average person who doesn’t live there can do to change it, but the Saudi ruling structure is profoundly intertwined with, for example, the U.S. government.  So first, let us learn then we can decide what can be done.

Prologue

‘The Bin Ladens’

By STEVE COLL

Published: March 31, 2008

“They exchanged business cards. His name was Salem Bin Laden. He had a house just west of Orlando, he told her, not far from Disney World, and he happened to be entertaining some visitors from his native Saudi Arabia who were members of that oil-endowed country’s royal family.”

You can read an excerpt here.

You can listen to a podcast of Mr. Coll discussing his book here.

Tags: bin laden, coll, saudi arabia