Holy War, Inc. provides a multi-faceted context that details: (1) how jihadist terrorism evolved from being primarily state-sponsored groups to the independent and sophisticated multinational organization that is Al Qaeda; (2) who made up the groups of people that were willing to leave behind the comforts of home to join what would later become Al Qaeda; (3) where the US went wrong in its covert sponsorship of militants who fought against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s; (4) what motivates bin Laden and his disciples to attack the US and other Western targets; and (5) why bin Laden is revered by many throughout the Muslim world.

The book was translated into 18 languages: Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Norwegian, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, and Turkish.

[4] Michiko Kakutani at The New York Times states that Bergen "does a succinct job of pulling together a wealth of information into a coherent ... narrative ... that impresses upon the reader the crucial role that the Afghan-Soviet conflict played in radicalizing many Islamic militants ... and replacing the notion of Arab nationalism with that of a larger Islamist movement.

"[5] L. Carl Brown, writing for Foreign Affairs magazine, called Bergen's work a "first-rate account" of Osama bin Laden's "secret world" and of the personnel who carried out various terrorist attacks against the United States between the early 1990s and 2000.

"[7] For instance, he references bin Laden's education and work experience in his family's construction business that later informed his decisions on how to "transform Al Qaeda ... into the world's pre-eminent terrorist organization."