Ghost Wars, Steve Coll
Ghost Wars, Steve Coll
22 Rating(s)
List: $17.50 | Sale: $12.25
Club: $8.75

Ghost Wars
The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (Pulitzer Prize Winner)

Author: Steve Coll

Narrator: Malcolm Hillgartner

Unabridged: 46 hr 24 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin Audio

Published: 10/27/2011

Synopsis

The explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan

With the publication of Ghost Wars, Steve Coll became not only a Pulitzer Prize winner, but also the expert on the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of Bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998.

About The Author

Steve Coll is most recently the author of the New York Times bestseller The Bin Ladens. He is the president of the New America Foundation, a nonpartisan public policy institute headquartered in Washington, DC, and a staff writer for the New Yorker. Previously he worked for 20 years at the Washington Post, where he received a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism in 1990. He is the author of six other books, including the Pulitzer Prize–winning bestseller Ghost Wars.Malcolm Hillgartner is a professional actor, playwright, and songwriter. In 2007, he began recording audiobooks and has since recorded more than 175 titles. He has won multiple Earphones Awards and was named a Best Voice of 2013 by AudioFile magazine.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jeffrey on July 05, 2019

"Oh, okay, you want us to capture him. Right. You crazy white guys.” 1979 is certainly a dividing line in my life. It was the year that Iranians stormed the embassy in Iran and took Americans hostage. This was quickly followed by the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan. I can remember thinking to myse......more

Goodreads review by Michael on November 20, 2019

There is absolutely no surprise that Steve Coll won the Pulitzer for this extraordinary book about the CIA and Afghanistan up to 9/10/11. This a plethora of well-researched data here about the mistakes and miscues that characterized the US strategy towards first the Russian invasion of this sad, des......more

Goodreads review by Will on April 23, 2014

This is probably the definitive work on the history of US involvement in the Afghanistan war against the Soviets and the resulting blowback. Coll begins with the Islamabad riot of 1979, in which thousands of Islamic militants laid waste to the US embassy while Zia was riding about on a bicycle distri......more

Goodreads review by Brett on May 02, 2021

This is an excellent book about modern Afghanistan. The author does a good job at highlighting the information, noting key players, and the various multidimensional problems that have existed in Afghanistan. Coll delivered a lot of information to include the Soviet invasion, the Northern Alliance, t......more

Goodreads review by Erwin on December 14, 2012

Quite similar to Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid, except I enjoyed "Taliban" quite a bit more. Coll wants to counterfactually state that the Clinton administration was wrongheaded in their effort to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation, stating that si......more

Quotes

“Certainly the finest historical narrative so far on the origins of al Qaeda in the post-Soviet rubble of Afghanistan . . . Ghost Wars provides fresh details and helps explain the motivations behind many crucial decisions.” —The New York Times Book Review

“The CIA itself would be hard put to beat his grasp of global events . . . Deeply satisfying.” —The New York Review of Books
 
“A well written, authoritative, high-altitude drama with few heroes, many villains, bags of cash, and a tragic ending—one that may not have been inevitable.” —The Washington Post

Awards

  • Lionel Gelber Prize
  • New York Times Notable Book
  • Pulitzer Prize (Non-Fiction)
Add to Cart
Add to Wish List