Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

To what extent did America’s best intelligence analysts grasp the rising threat of Islamist radicalism? Who tried to stop bin Laden and why did they fail? Comprehensively and for the first time, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Steve Coll recounts the history of the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks. Based on scrupulous research and... (more)

Charlie Wilson's War

by George Crile

Charlie Wilson's War was a publishing sensation and a New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times bestseller. In the early 1980s, a Houston socialite turned the attention of maverick Texas congressman Charlie Wilson to the ragged band of Afghan "freedom fighters" who continued, despite overwhelming odds, to fight the Soviet invaders. Wilson, who sat on the all-powerful House Appropriations Committee,... (more)

Imperial Life in the Emerald City

Inside Iraq's Green Zone

by Rajiv Chandrasekaran

An unprecedented account of life in Baghdad’s Green Zone, a walled-off enclave of towering plants, posh villas, and sparkling swimming pools that was the headquarters for the American occupation of Iraq. The Washington Post ’s former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran takes us with him into the Zone: into a bubble, cut off from wartime realities, where the task of reconstructing a devastated nation... (more)

War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death

War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death

by Norman Solomon

War Made Easy cuts through the dense web of spin to probe and scrutinize the key "perception management" techniques that have played huge roles in the promotion of American wars in recent decades. This guide to disinformation analyzes American military adventures past and present to reveal striking similarities in the efforts of various administrations to justify, and retain, public support for war. War Made Easy... (more)

War Journal: My Five Years in Iraq

by Richard Engel

In the most dramatic and intimate account of battle reporting since Michael Herr's classic Dispatches , NBC News's award-winning Middle East Bureau Chief, Richard Engel, offers an unvarnished and often emotional account of five years in Iraq. Engel is the longest serving broadcaster in Iraq and the only American television reporter to cover the country continuously before, during, and after the 2003 U.S.... (more)

by Wesley K. Clark

Ugly, shocking, frightening, war came to Europe once more in March 1999. The world watched in dismay as Yugoslavia's military machine attacked its own citizens in the province of Kosovo. Pictures of refugees fleeing and stories of murder and rape flashed to the top of the news. But this time, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization intervened. Using an innovative, high-technology air operation, NATO brought modern... (more)

Chain of Command CD: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib

Chain of Command CD: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib

by Seymour M. Hersh

Since September 11, 2001, Seymour M. Hersh has riveted readers -- and outraged the Bush Administration -- with his stories in The New Yorker magazine, including his breakthrough pieces on the Abu Gharaib prison scandal. Now, in Chain of Command , he brings together this reporting, along with new revelations, to answer the critical question of the last three years: how did America get from the clear morning when... (more)

Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy

Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy

by Andrew Cockburn

Donald Rumsfeld, who as secretary of defense oversaw the army, navy, air force, and marines from 2001 to December 2006, is widely blamed for the catastrophic state of America's involvement in Iraq. In his groundbreaking book Rumsfeld, Washington insider Andrew Cockburn details Rumsfeld's decisions in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and also shows how his political legacy stretches back decades and will reach far... (more)

The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone

The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone

by Joseph S. Nye

Not since the Roman Empire has any nation had as much economic, cultural, and military power as the United States does today. Yet, as has become all too evident through the terrorist attacks of September 11th and the impending threat of the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iraq, that power is not enough to solve global problems--like terrorism, environmental degradation, and the proliferation of weapons of mass... (more)

Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco

Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco

by David L. Phillips

"An incisive, firsthand account of policymaking in a crisis." (General Wesley Clark) Things didn't go wrong in postwar Iraq because the United States lacked a plan. Things went wrong because the United States was blinded by ideology and ignored planning that was already underway. Losing Iraq tells the story of the tragedy of Iraq, from the first discreet meetings to plan the political transition through the... (more)

Rogue State, 3rd Edition: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

Rogue State, 3rd Edition: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower

by William Blum

"Bravo! A vivid, well-aimed critique of the evils of US global interventionism, a superb antidote to officialdom's lies and propaganda."-Michael Parenti " Rogue State forcibly reminds us of Vice President Agnew's immortal line, 'The United States, for all its faults, is still the greatest nation in the country.'"-Gore Vidal "Bill Blum came by his book title easily: He simply tested America by the same... (more)

Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants : The Looting of the News in a Time of Terror

Attack Poodles and Other Media Mutants : The Looting of the News in a Time of Terror

by James Wolcott

They are coddled and well-groomed. They chase after the latest scandal and then run around in crazy circles, using the TV studio as their show ring and wee-wee pad. There is no controversy they can't trivialize, no issue they can't vulgarize. They obey their political masters and betray the trust of the audience with every bark. They're the attack poodles-a new breed of celebrity pundit. Wisecracking and... (more)

A Tragic Legacy

How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency

by Glenn Greenwald

What will be the legacy of President George Walker Bush? In this fascinating, timely book, Glenn Greenwald examines the Bush presidency and its long-term effect on the nation. What began on shaky, uncertain ground and was bolstered and propelled by tragedy, has ultimately faltered and failed on the back of the dichotomous worldview—good versus evil—that once served it so well. In A Tragic Legacy, Greenwald charts... (more)

Progressive Presidents: Roosevelt, Wilson, and Roosevelt

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Tags: american foreign policy

Ghost Wars

The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001

by Steve Coll