'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 Arabia' The New York Times

Little 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.