The Book Prize Index

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century

Steve Coll

The rise and rise of the Bin Laden family is one of the great stories of the twentieth century; its repercussions have already deeply marked the twenty-first. Until now, however, it is a story that has never been fully told, as the Bin Ladens have successfully fended off attempts to understand the family circles from which Osama sprang. In this the family has been abetted by the kingdom it calls home, Saudi Arabia, one of the most closed societies on earth.Steve Coll's The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century is the groundbreaking history of a family and its fortune. It chronicles a young illiterate Yemeni bricklayer, Mohamed Bin Laden, who went to the new, oil-rich country of Saudi Arabia and quickly became a vital figure in its development, building great mosques and highways and making himself and many of his children millionaires.

BiographyBiography · medium confidenceBiography81 signalsLlm Classifier: Biography -> BiographyKeyword Classifier: American History -> American HistoryAward Category: National Book Critics Circle Award for Biography -> BiographyGroup Biography

Award History

1 wins · 4 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
PEN/John Kenneth Galbraith Award for Nonfiction2009WinnerSecondary source
Pulitzer Prize in Biography or AutobiographyMajor2009FinalistSecondary source
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Current InterestMajor2008FinalistSecondary source
National Book Critics Circle Award for BiographyMajor2008FinalistSecondary source
View all award history (4)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    • Mohamed Bin Laden78%
    Show lower-confidence suggestions

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • Osama Bin Laden42%

  2. 02 Central places

    • Saudi Arabia78%
    Show lower-confidence suggestions

    These suggestions did not meet the normal display threshold and are more likely to be wrong.

    • Yemen43%

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    No argument inferred with sufficient confidence.

    This suggestion did not meet the normal display threshold and is more likely to be wrong.

    The Bin Laden family’s rise and its marked twentieth- and twenty-first-century repercussions have never been fully told because the family and Saudi Arabia have resisted understanding of the circles from which Osama sprang.

    Model confidence 41%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    35 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 66%.