I hoped to get some deeper understanding of Al Qaeda and its leadership from a study of material actually written by themselves rather than filtered through news media or analysts. Al Qaeda In Its Own Words somewhat met this goal, but was ultimately unsatisfying for me. Frankly, the material presented was pretty shallow. The editors imply that this is so because the thinking behind the material is pretty shallow, and I can believe it. It may be that the material the editors have to work with is in itself ultimately unsatisfying.

The introductory material on each of the authors was a decent set of histories, but all of the info could be found in more detail in other sources. The end notes were good, and I highly recommend they be read as the reader proceeds through the text.

What would have made this book better? I'm not sure. Perhaps my expectations were too high. Perhaps the book would have been better if the introductory material also included discussion of the context and some interpretation of the presented material. I suspect the ideas presented here are not mainstream Islam, and so perhaps counterpoint arguments should have been presented. In the end, it seemed like something more needed to be added to round out the work. ( )