Ghost Wars

Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction

　　To what extent did America's best intelligence analysts grasp the rising threat of Islamistradicalism? 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 firsthand accounts by key government, intelligence, and military personnel both foreign and American, Coll details the secret history of the CIA's role in Afghanistan, the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of bin Laden, and the failed efforts by U.S. forces to find and assassinate bin Laden in Afghanistan.

　　Author Biography: Steve Coll, winner of a 1990 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism, has been managing editor of The Washington Post since 1998, and covered Afghanistan as the Post's South Asia bureau chief between 1989 and 1992. He is the author of four books, including On the Grand Trunk Road and The Taking of Getty Oil.
From The Critics

The New York Times
　　Coll, the managing editor of The Washington Post, has given us what is certainly the finest historical narrative so far on the origins of Al Qaeda in the post-Soviet rubble of Afghanistan. He has followed up that feat by threading together the complex roles played by diplomats and spies from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States into a coherent story explaining how Afghanistan became such a welcoming haven for Al Qaeda. — James Risen

The Washington Post
　　In Ghost Wars, The Washington Post's managing editor, Steve Coll, takes a long -- and long overdue -- look at the peaks and valleys of the CIA's presence in Afghanistan throughout the decades leading to Sept. 10, 2001. It is a well-written, authoritative, high-altitude drama with a cast of few heroes, many villains, bags of cash and a tragic ending -- one that may not have been inevitable. — James Bamford

Library Journal
　　A Pulitzer Prize winner who covered Afghanistan for the Washington Post from 1989 to 1992, Coll explains how long and how deeply we've been entrenched there.