The Bin Ladens : an Arabian family in the American century / Steve Coll

Includes bibliographical references (p. [637]-645) and index.

Patriarchs : 1900 to September 1967. In exile -- The royal garage -- Silent partners -- The glory of his reign -- For Jerusalem -- The backlash -- A modern man -- Crosswind -- Sons and daughters : September 1967 to May 1988. The guardians -- Young Osama -- Realm of conspiracy -- The rising son -- Discovering America -- The convert's zeal -- Wired -- The amusement park -- In the king's service -- Anxiety disorder -- The grinder -- The arms bazaar -- Off the books -- The proposal -- Kitty Hawk field of dreams -- The global family : June 1988 to September 2001. Writer-director-producer -- Lump sums -- America in motion -- The Swiss accounts -- A Rolls Royce in the rain -- The construction of exile -- Hedge funds -- A trojan desk -- The aesthetics of worship -- One phone, one world -- Lawyers, guns, and money -- Bin Laden island -- Legacies : September 2001 to September 2007. The name -- Public relations -- Brands -- So what? -- In exile.

"Steve Coll's The Bin Ladens 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 America - exemplified by Osama's free-living pilot brother Salem - to an overwhelming determination to destroy it." "The Bin Ladens is a meticulously researched, colorful, shocking, entertaining, and disturbing narrative of global integration and its limitations. It encapsulates the unsettling contradictions of globalization in the story of a single family who has used money, mobility, and technology to dramatically varied ends."--BOOK JACKET.