aw. RE: The Nobel Prize for War 2009 goes to ...

[Robert Mahnke]

If I were to read only one book about the run-up to 9/11, I would read
Steve Coll's Ghost Wars, about U.S. policy towards Afghanistan for the
~25 years before 2001.  While the sub-title refers to the CIA,
Afghanistan and bin Laden, the focus is more on the first two, and bin
Laden becomes a focus only once he leaves the Middle East and arrives
in Afghanistan.  Wright's book is focused on trying to understand
where bin Laden came from (in different senses), while Coll's book
tries to explain what the CIA was trying to do in Afghanistan while
the attention of the rest of the U.S. government was focused
elsewhere.  Like Wright, Coll is (now) a New Yorker writer.  The book
won a Pulitzer Prize, FWIW.  N.B. -- It's not short.  You can read
some for free via Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=ToYxFL5wmBIC&dq=steve+coll+ghost+wars+prize&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=EjYZS7WCJdK2lAecmJHoAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CBsQ6AEwBQ

On 12/4/09, John Carvill <johncarvill at gmail.com> wrote:
> In any case, I'm intrigued enough to finally check out the book for
> myself. Here's an excerpt I've jsut sent to my office printer:
>
> http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375414862&view=excerpt
>