The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century
#167 of 3,809 books · #81 in Biography & Memoir
Won the PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction (2009). Also shortlisted or longlisted for 3 other awards.
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.
- Publisher
- Penguin UK
- ISBN-13
- 9780141917788
- Genre
- Topics
- Bin Laden family historySaudi Arabia and modernizationIslamic extremism
Awards
- PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for NonfictionWon(2009)
- Pulitzer Prize for Biography or AutobiographyShortlistedMajor(2009)
- Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current InterestShortlisted(2008)
- National Book Critics Circle Award for BiographyShortlistedMajor(2008)
Other awarded books from Steve Coll
- Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power (2012)1 win · 15 score
- The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America’s Invasion of Iraq (2025)0 wins · 13 score
- Directorate S: The C.I.A. and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan (2018)1 win · 12 score
- Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004)1 win · 12 score
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