Across the World: United Kingdom

Bin Laden book

A new book looks at Osama bin Laden through the prism of his family, and suggests that the death of his extrovert playboy brother Salem in a 1988 plane crash was an important factor in his radicalization.

The Bin Ladens, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Steve Coll, traces the family's rise to prominence in Saudi society through the 20th century and how its fate, and that of Osama in particular, was inextricably linked with the royal family's.