Iraq War Books

The Forever War

Dexter Filkins

Amazon Price: $16.50 List Price: $25.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Knopf Amazon Marketplace: 55 new & used starting at $14.91

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Military -> United States -> Operation Desert Storm
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Iraq War
Subjects -> History -> Military -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 45 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

From the front lines of the battle against Islamic fundamentalism, a searing, unforgettable book that captures the human essence of the greatest conflict of our time.

Through the eyes of Dexter Filkins, the prizewinning New York Times correspondent whose work was hailed by David Halberstam as “reporting of the highest quality imaginable,” we witness the remarkable chain of events that began with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, continued with the attacks of 9/11, and moved on to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Filkins’s narrative moves across a vast and various landscape of amazing characters and astonishing scenes: deserts, mountains, and streets of carnage; a public amputation performed by Taliban; children frolicking in minefields; skies streaked white by the contrails of B-52s; a night’s sleep in the rubble of Ground Zero.

We embark on a foot patrol through the shadowy streets of Ramadi, venture into a torture chamber run by Saddam Hussein. We go into the homes of suicide bombers and into street-to-street fighting with a battalion of marines. We meet Iraqi insurgents, an American captain who loses a quarter of his men in eight days, and a young soldier from Georgia on a rooftop at midnight reminiscing about his girlfriend back home. A car bomb explodes, bullets fly, and a mother cradles her blinded son.

Like no other book, The Forever War allows us a visceral understanding of today’s battlefields and of the experiences of the people on the ground, warriors and innocents alike. It is a brilliant, fearless work, not just about America’s wars after 9/11, but ultimately about the nature of war itself.

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army [Revised and Updated]

Jeremy Scahill

Amazon Price: $11.53 List Price: $16.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Nation Books Amazon Marketplace: 78 new & used starting at $3.57

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Biography & History -> Company Profiles
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> Iraq
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Iraq War

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 247 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Can you say "Witch Hunt"? 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 3 people found this review helpful.

This book doesn't even pretend to be objective. Scahill obviously has a serious hate-on for all private military contractors (Blackwater especially). This is the "in" thing right now. It's cool to hate on these guys, and Scahill's looking to make his mark as the coolest. So what if his research, while thorough, is biased and guided by his own axe to grind? Blackwater employees wouldn't even have given this guy the time of day, and Blackwater's CEO flat-out refused an interview with him. I'm sure it's because they saw through him and knew he was only there for a witch hunt. I'm not saying don't read this book. What I'm saying is look at more than just his viewpoint. I doubt that this guy's ever been in a combat zone, but he wants to critique every move made by those who work in them. I'd recommend you read Robert Young Pelton's book "Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror". He actually rode along with Blackwater employees and got an interview with the CEO. He's as close as you'll come to an objective viewpoint.

Editorial Review:

On September 16, 2007, machine gun fire erupted in Baghdad's Nisour Square leaving seventeen Iraqi civilians dead, among them women and children. The shooting spree, labeled "Baghdad's Bloody Sunday," was neither the work of Iraqi insurgents nor U.S. soldiers. The shooters were private forces working for the secretive mercenary company, Blackwater Worldwide.

This is the explosive story of a company that rose a decade ago from Moyock, North Carolina, to become one of the most powerful players in the "War on Terror." In his gripping bestseller, awardwinning journalist Jeremy Scahill takes us from the bloodied streets of Iraq to hurricane-ravaged New Orleans to the chambers of power in Washington, to expose Blackwater as the frightening new face of the U.S. war machine.

* Winner of the George Polk Book Award
* Alternet Best Book of the Year
* Barnes & Noble one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2007
* Amazon one of the Best Nonfiction Books of 2007  

Generation Kill

Evan Wright

Amazon Price: $5.99 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Berkley Trade Amazon Marketplace: 7 new & used starting at $5.91

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Iraq War

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 180 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

In the tradition of Black Hawk Down and Jarhead comes a searing portrait of young men fighting a modern-day war.

A powerhouse work of nonfiction, Generation Kill expands on Evan Wright's acclaimed three-part series that appeared in Rolling Stone during the summer of 2003. His narrative follows the twenty-three marines of First Recon who spearheaded the blitzkrieg on Iraq. This elite unit, nicknamed "First Suicide Battalion," searched out enemy fighters by racing ahead of American battle forces and literally driving into suspected ambush points.

Evan Wright lived on the front lines with this platoon from the opening hours of combat, to the fall of Baghdad, through the start of the guerrilla war. He was welcomed into their ranks, and from this bird's-eye perspective he tells the unsettling story of young men trained by their country to be ruthless killers. He chronicles the triumphs and horrors-physical, moral, emotional, and spiritual-that these marines endured while achieving victory in a war many questioned before it began. Wright's book is a timely account of war; even more important, it is a timeless description of the human drama taking place on today's battlefields. Written with brutal honesty, raw intensity, and startling intimacy, Generation Kill is destined to become a classic and take its place in the canon of the most captivating and authentic works of war literature.

Big Boy Rules: America's Mercenaries Fighting in Iraq

Steve Fainaru

Amazon Price: $17.16 List Price: $26.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Da Capo Press Amazon Marketplace: 46 new & used starting at $14.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Iraq War
Subjects -> History -> Military -> General
Subjects -> History -> Military -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

There are tens of thousands of them in Iraq. They work for companies with exotic and ominous-sounding names, like Crescent Security Group, Triple Canopy, and Blackwater Worldwide. They travel in convoys of multicolored pickups fortified with makeshift armor, belt-fed machine guns, frag grenades, and even shoulder-fired missiles. They protect everything from the U.S. ambassador and American generals to shipments of Frappuccino bound for Baghdad’s Green Zone. They kill Iraqis, and Iraqis kill them.

And the only law they recognize is Big Boy Rules.

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter comes a harrowing journey into Iraq’s parallel war. Part MadMax, part Fight Club, it is a world filled with “private security contractors”—the U.S. government’s sanitized name for tens of thousands of modern mercenaries, or mercs, who roam Iraq with impunity, doing jobs that the overstretched and understaffed military can’t or won’t do.

They are men like Jon Coté, a sensitive former U.S. army paratrooper and University of Florida fraternity brother who realizes too late that he made a terrible mistake coming back to Iraq. And Paul Reuben, a friendly security company medic who has no formal medical training and lacks basic supplies, like tourniquets. They are part of America’s “other” army—some patriotic, some desperate, some just out for cash or adventure. And some who disappear into the void that is Iraq and are never seen again.

Washington Post reporter Steve Fainaru traveled with a group of private security contractors to find out what motivates them to put their lives in danger every day. He joined Jon Coté and the men of Crescent Security Group as they made their way through Iraq—armed to the teeth, dodging not only bombs and insurgents but also their own Iraqi colleagues. Just days after Fainaru left to go home, five men of Crescent Security Group were kidnapped in broad daylight on Iraq’s main highway. How the government and the company responded reveals the dark truths behind the largest private force in the history of American warfare. . . .

With 16 pages of photographs
 

The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq

Bing West

Amazon Price: $18.48 List Price: $28.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Random House Amazon Marketplace: 51 new & used starting at $15.99

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> General
Subjects -> History -> Middle East -> General AAS
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Iraq War

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 45 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

From a universally respected combat journalist, a gripping history based on five years of front-line reporting about how the war was turned around–and the choice now facing America

During the fierce battle for Fallujah, Bing West asked an Iraqi colonel why the archterrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had fled in women’s clothes. The colonel pointed to a Marine patrol walking by and said, “Americans are the strongest tribe.”

In Iraq, America made mistake after mistake. Many gave up on the war. Then the war took a sharp U-turn. Two generals–David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno–displayed the leadership America expected. Bringing the reader from the White House to the fighting in the streets, this remarkable narrative explains the turnaround by U.S. forces.

In the course of fourteen extended trips over five years, West embedded with more than sixty front-line units, discussing strategy with generals and tactics with corporals. He provides an expert’s account of counterinsurgency, disposing of myths. By describing the characters and combat in city after city, West gives the reader an in-depth understanding that will inform the debate about the war. This is the definitive study of how American soldiers actually fought –a gripping and visceral book that changes the way we think about the war, and essential reading for understanding the next critical steps to be taken.

Praise for The Strongest Tribe:

"Balanced, panoramic assessment of the Iraq War by former Marine and Reagan administration veteran West (No True Glory, 2005, etc.), who heralds American soldiers as its unsung heroes amid the “fog of Washington”. . .A timely, eye-opening historical analysis that provides clarity around the difficult choices the next president faces."
--Kirkus (starred review)

"In this important new chronicle of the war in Iraq, Bing West reveals how America reached the brink of defeat in 2006 and then managed in 2007 to stage a stunning turnaround. With its vivid, on-the-ground reporting, his book is a fitting tribute to the honor, valor, and toughness of our soldiers. Notwithstanding numerous mistakes by their leaders, West shows that their sacrifices have made success possible--as long we do not withdraw prematurely."
--Senator John S. McCain

“Sometimes the best way to support the troops is to criticize the generals. Bing West does both well in this book, showing a sympathy for our soldiers and Marines, but also a great ear for military truth and a determination to render events accurately. This is his third and most important book about the Iraq war. Read it.”
-- Thomas E. Ricks, author of FIASCO: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

“A brilliant exposition. Based on extensive experience in the war zone, Bing West recounts how Soldiers and Marines showed the President and the Pentagon the way to solve the Iraq insurgency problem. Echoing the admonition that "all politics are local", The Strongest Tribe convincingly argues that it was a grass roots strategy developed by on-scene officers who forged ties at the tribal level that brought stability to Iraq's turbulent Anbar Province and provided hope for all Iraq.”
-- Lt. Gen. Bernard E. Trainor USMC (Ret.) Co-author of The Generals' War
and COBRA II: The Inside Story of the Invation and Occupation of Iraq

“Some four decades ago I told Bing West that his book, the Village, would become a classic in counterinsurgency warfare. And so it did. "The Strongest Tribe" will surely be West's second classic -  a moving and detailed account of almost six years of war in Iraq.”
- Dr. James R. Schlesinger, Director of Central Intelligence Agency, Nixon administration; Secretary of Defense, Ford administration; Chairman, The Mitre Corporation

Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq (Yale Library of Military History)

Peter R. Mansoor

Amazon Price: $18.48 List Price: $28.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Yale University Press Amazon Marketplace: 46 new & used starting at $14.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Military -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Military -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Professionals & Academics -> Military & Spies

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This compelling book presents an unparalleled record of what happened after U.S. forces seized Baghdad in the spring of 2003. Army Colonel Peter R. Mansoor, the on-the-ground commander of the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division—the “Ready First Combat Team”—describes his brigade’s first year in Iraq, from the sweltering, chaotic summer after the Ba’athists’ defeat to the transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government a year later. Uniquely positioned to observe, record, and assess the events of that fateful year, Mansoor now explains what went right and wrong as the U.S. military confronted an insurgency of unexpected strength and tenacity.

 

Drawing not only on his own daily combat journal but also on observations by embedded reporters, news reports, combat logs, archived e-mails, and many other sources, Mansoor offers a contemporary record of the valor, motivations, and resolve of the 1st Brigade and its attachments during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Yet this book has a deeper significance than a personal memoir or unit history. Baghdad at Sunrise provides a detailed, nuanced analysis of U.S. counterinsurgency operations in Iraq, and along with it critically important lessons for America’s military and political leaders of the twenty-first century.

 

(20080801)

House to House: An Epic Memoir of War

David Bellavia

Amazon Price: $7.99 List Price: $7.99 Not yet published By: Pocket Star

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Military -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Military -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 145 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Every "American" must read this!!!!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
3 of 3 people found this review helpful.

After trying to understand for years even a small fraction of what is actually going on in Iraq and what happened in Fallujah, this book is a blessing. Not only is a it a great account to the things we all must know before we turn on CNN for the guide to our lives, it's also a great story in general.. It will steal you heart, if you have one. It's very easy to read and holds your attention throughout the whole book without any long boring gaps. So for those of you with limited attention span (like me), reading it should not take long or pose any problems.

This book may also help you question and find out things about your own self. I hope it can do for many what it did for me. I felt more emotion that I have felt from any movie or book for many many years.

I would like to thank SSG David Bellavia for doing the incredible things that you did and writing to tell us about it without holding back what most people would never share. You are and all of the men and women you served with are now more than ever my heroes! God bless you!

Editorial Review:

Bringing to searing life the terrifying intimacy of hand-to-hand infantry combat, House to House is far more than just another war story. Populated by an indelibly drawn cast of characters, it develops the intensely close relationships that form between soldiers under fire. Their friendships, tested in brutal combat, would never be quite the same. What happened to them in their bloody embrace with America's most implacable enemy is a harrowing, unforgettable story of triumph, tragedy, and the resiliency of the human spirit.

House to House is a soldier's memoir that is destined to rank with the finest personal accounts of men at war. An instant classic in hardcover, this timeless story features a new afterword and a question and answer section with the author.

One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer

Nathaniel C. Fick

Amazon Price: $9.72 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Mariner Books Amazon Marketplace: 74 new & used starting at $2.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Military -> General
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Leaders & Notable People -> Military -> General AAS
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Professionals & Academics -> Military & Spies

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 156 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

If the Marines are "the few, the proud," Recon Marines are the fewest
and the proudest. Nathaniel Fick's career begins with a hellish summer
at Quantico, after his junior year at Dartmouth. He leads a platoon
in Afghanistan just after 9/11 and advances to the pinnacle—Recon—
two years later, on the eve of war with Iraq. His vast skill set puts him
in front of the front lines, leading twenty-two Marines into the deadliest
conflict since Vietnam. He vows to bring all his men home safely, and
to do so he'll need more than his top-flight education. Fick unveils the
process that makes Marine officers such legendary leaders and shares
his hard-won insights into the differences between military ideals and
military practice, which can mock those ideals.

In this deeply thoughtful account of what it's like to fight on
today's front lines, Fick reveals the crushing pressure on young leaders
in combat. Split-second decisions might have national consequences or
horrible immediate repercussions, but hesitation isn't an option. One
Bullet Away never shrinks from blunt truths, but ultimately it is an
inspiring account of mastering the art of war.

From Baghdad, With Love: A Marine, the War, and a Dog Named Lava

Jay Kopelman, Melinda Roth

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: The Lyons Press Amazon Marketplace: 53 new & used starting at $4.78

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Iraq War
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Animal Care & Pets -> Dogs -> General
Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Animal Care & Pets -> Dogs -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 121 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Heartwarming, uplifting, tensions high, emotions soaring!!! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

What can I say that hasn't already been said about this wonderful book? Not much to tell you the truth. It is a great book, very hard to put down. You learn so much about Lava and Jay, as well as what is really going on in Iraq. It took me a long time to bring myself to buy this book.
One reason was I was afraid to read the reality of what is going on in Iraq. Because I knew that there was no way someone could write about a dog he is trying to save, without telling us what is really happening over there. The other is I knew that the military doesn't allow any contact with stray animals. So in my head I thought it was going to be a sad ending.
So I avoided the book, that is until the seeing the second book that came out. I saw that he arrived home safely. Now, I am kicking myself for not getting this book earlier. I laughed, cried, almost hurled (from some of the things that he described), cried, and laughed again.
I hope that this really opens the militarys eyes and sees that our troops really do need the comfort of animals. They just seem to make everything feel better. Just a few minutes of being with your furry pal, puts you in a wonderful zone.
Thanks Jay for saving Lava, and opening the door for the possiblity of more rescues.
Good bless our Troops!!!

Editorial Review:

A war memoir that will capture the hearts of its readers, just as one scruffy puppy sneaked his way into the hearts of hardened Marines just when they needed it most.

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq

Thomas E. Ricks

Amazon Price: $6.99 List Price: $27.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin Press HC, The Amazon Marketplace: 23 new & used starting at $4.00

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> History -> Military -> Iraq War

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 316 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Despite All the Planning, Rumsfeld Had No Plan 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

Mr. Ricks argues that the invasion of Iraq "was based on perhaps the worst war plan in American history," an incomplete plan that confused removing Iraq's regime with the far more difficult task of changing the entire country.

The result of going in with too few troops and no larger strategic plan, he says, was that the U.S. effort resembled a banana republic coup d'état more than a full-scale war plan that reflected the ambition of a great power to alter the politics of a crucial region of the world.

The four hundred plus pages move along pretty fast and Ricks to his credit, lets the facts tell the story without extensive or heavy-handed direct criticism of President Bush or then-Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld.

I think Fiasco along with Lawrence Wright's The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 (Vintage)are the two best books about the Iraq war to date. Recommended.

Editorial Review:

The definitive account of the American military’s tragic experience in Iraq from a Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter

Thomas E. Ricks, senior Pentagon correspondent for the Washington Post, puts forth in Fiasco a masterful reckoning with the planning and execution of the American military invasion and occupation of Iraq, now with a preface on recent developments. Ricks draws on the exclusive cooperation of an extraordinary number of American personnel—including more than one hundred senior officers—and access to more than 30,000 pages of official documents, many of them never before made public. Tragically, it is an undeniable account—explosive, shocking, and authoritative—of unsurpassed tactical success combined with unsurpassed strategic failure that indicts some of America’s most powerful and honored civilian and military leaders.