Title: Only half on track
Product review: Anyone looking for an authoritative book on Bin Laden would do better to consult either of Peter Bergen's works, or Rohan Gunaratna. While many of the details in Bodansky's book are plausible, and even correspond with those of other authors, no footnotes are given throughout, and many details (such as Al Qaeda's possession of nuclear weapons) are highly suspect if not patently false. Bodansky portray's Bin Laden as largely a state-sponsored terrorist, and I think he fails utterly to show the grass roots genesis of Islamist resistance. In fact, most of the book isn't even on Bin Laden, save one chapter, and deals with background events of Islamist terrorism. Most damaging is Bodansky's failure to be transparent about his sources and convincing about his facts. A critical reader should suspect an agenda or ideological lens in this work that is absent from Bergen and Gunaratna.
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