Wright traces the rise of al-Qaeda from Sayyid Qutb's radicalization in 1940s Colorado to the morning of September 11, showing how FBI-CIA turf wars and bureaucratic failures let the plot succeed. Won the Pulitzer. The research took five years and five hundred interviews. It reads like a thriller whose ending you already know and still can't believe.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.