Afghanistan Books

Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations...One School at a Time

Greg Mortenson, David Oliver Relin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1462 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The inspiring account of one man’s campaign to build schools in the most dangerous, remote, and anti- American reaches of Asia

In 1993 Greg Mortenson was the exhausted survivor of a failed attempt to ascend K2, an American climbing bum wandering emaciated and lost through Pakistan’s Karakoram Himalaya. After he was taken in and nursed back to health by the people of an impoverished Pakistani village, Mortenson promised to return one day and build them a school. From that rash, earnest promise grew one of the most incredible humanitarian campaigns of our time—Greg Mortenson’s one-man mission to counteract extremism by building schools, especially for girls, throughout the breeding ground of the Taliban.

Award-winning journalist David Oliver Relin has collaborated on this spellbinding account of Mortenson’s incredible accomplishments in a region where Americans are often feared and hated. In pursuit of his goal, Mortenson has survived kidnapping, fatwas issued by enraged mullahs, repeated death threats, and wrenching separations from his wife and children. But his success speaks for itself. At last count, his Central Asia Institute had built fifty-five schools. Three Cups of Tea is at once an unforgettable adventure and the inspiring true story of how one man really is changing the world—one school at a time.

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10

Marcus Luttrell

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 785 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

On a clear night in late June 2005, four U.S. Navy SEALs left their base in northern Afghanistan for the mountainous Pakistani border. Their mission was to capture or kill a notorious al Qaeda leader known to be ensconced in a Taliban stronghold surrounded by a small but heavily armed force. Less then twenty-four hours later, only one of those Navy SEALs remained alive.


This is the story of fire team leader Marcus Luttrell, the sole survivor of Operation Redwing, and the desperate battle in the mountains that led, ultimately, to the largest loss of life in Navy SEAL history. But it is also, more than anything, the story of his teammates, who fought ferociously beside him until he was the last one left-blasted unconscious by a rocket grenade, blown over a cliff, but still armed and still breathing. Over the next four days, badly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell fought off six al Qaeda assassins who were sent to finish him, then crawled for seven miles through the mountains before he was taken in by a Pashtun tribe, who risked everything to protect him from the encircling Taliban killers.


A six-foot-five-inch Texan, Leading Petty Officer Luttrell takes us, blow-by-blow, through the brutal training of America's warrior elite and the relentless rites of passage required by the Navy SEALs. He transports us to a monstrous battle fought in the desolate peaks of Afghanistan, where the beleaguered American team plummeted headlong a thousand feet down a mountain as they fought back through flying shale and rocks. In this rich , moving chronicle of courage, honor, and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers one of the most powerful narratives ever written about modern warfare-and a tribute to his teammates, who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country.

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

Steve Coll

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 143 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Highly Informative, Not Well-Constructed, and Unfortunately Biased 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I recommend this book, in spite of its flaws, because it is a very useful history of CIA involvement in Afghanistan, from the end of the Carter administration until the day before the 9/11 attacks.

The book is divided into three parts, focusing on the Soviet occupation and mujahideen resistance, the Afghan Civil War, and the Taliban era, respectively. Coll commands a truly impressive list of source-interviews, and has clearly devoted considerable research time and effort. I suspect that few authors indeed could have had access to all of his information. If you can read the book through the end, it will be worth it.

But there are a few problems, which are significant:

1. The narrative tends to jump around in terms of geography and chronology. To some extent this is a necessary evil; in order to understand Afghanistan over the past three decades, one must understand Soviet/Russian, Iranian, Pakistani, Saudi and American involvement, because modern Afghanistan did not happen in a nutshell. And in order to understand those nations' involvement, one must know something of their history, and the personalities which drove decision-making. Unfortunately, Coll does not quite manage to pull everything together in a clear, readable narrative. The book can be slow-going, especially if you are new to the Middle East and Central Asia.

2. Coll very obviously doesn't care much for Republicans, and goes to some lengths to defend Democrats (without completely absolving them of responsibility). This is odd, given that the vast majority of the post-Soviet/pre-9/11 era happened under Democrat watch. Perhaps this is due in part to Coll's access to sources: it appears from his endnotes that he relies heavily on Clinton's administration for information, which is precisely the group with the greatest incentive to white-wash their actions. If most of the people you talk to are liberals, you will end up with a liberal version of history -- it's understandable, but regrettable.

3. The book has extremely little focus on Iran, and few details on the 9/11 hijackings. If you are interested in information on these aspects of Afghanistan, look elsewhere.

Again, I do recommend the book, which is valuable for its strengths in spite of its weaknesses. But the reader is advised caution, and might do well to start with a general history of Afghanistan or the Middle East before picking up Coll's book.

Editorial Review:

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 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.

The Places In Between

Rory Stewart

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 157 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Meh 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

What Mr. Stewart did was brave, and interesting in theory, but the narrative that emerges is unavoidably monotonous, as the areas he walked through are pretty much the armpit of the world. Blah blah snow blah grudgingly given sleep space in the mosque blah left the next day blah Kalashnikovs blah they threw rocks at my dog again. I was hoping for a much more eventful story as I love travel writing and have been wanting to know more about that part of the world... and it turns out, not surprisingly, that it's primitive and poor and cold and isolated and just not real interesting. And this is not to denigrate Mr. Stewart: on the contrary he should be admired for telling it like it is.

Editorial Review:

In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and rogues, tribal elders and teenage soldiers, Taliban commanders and foreign-aid workers. He was also adopted by an unexpected companion-a retired fighting mastiff he named Babur in honor of Afghanistan's first Mughal emperor, in whose footsteps the pair was following.

Through these encounters-by turns touching, con-founding, surprising, and funny-Stewart makes tangible the forces of tradition, ideology, and allegiance that shape life in the map's countless places in between.

Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times

George Crile

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Total reviews: 204 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

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, managed to procure hundreds of millions of dollars to support the mujahideen. The arms were secretly procured and distributed with the help of an out-of-favor CIA operative, Gust Avrokotos, whose working-class Greek-American background made him an anomaly among the Ivy League world of American spies. Avrakotos handpicked a staff of CIA outcasts to run his operation and, with their help, continually stretched the Agency's rules to the breaking point. Moving from the back rooms of the Capitol, to secret chambers at Langley, to arms-dealers' conventions, to the Khyber Pass, this book presents an astonishing chapter of our recent past, and the key to understanding what helped trigger the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union and ultimately led to the emergence of a brand-new foe in the form of radical Islam.

Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia

Ahmed Rashid

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Total reviews: 145 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Shrouding themselves and their aims in deepest secrecy, the leaders of the Taliban movement control Afghanistan with an inflexible, crushing fundamentalism. The most extreme and radical of all Islamic organizations, the Taliban inspires fascination, controversy, and especially fear in both the Muslim world and the West. Correspondent Ahmed Rashid brings the shadowy world of the Taliban into sharp focus in this enormously interesting and revealing book. It is the only authoritative account of the Taliban and modern day Afghanistan available to English language readers.

Based on his experiences as a journalist covering the civil war in Afghanistan for twenty years, traveling and living with the Taliban, and interviewing most of the Taliban leaders since their emergence to power in 1994, Rashid offers unparalleled firsthand information. He explains how the growth of Taliban power has already created severe instability in Russia, Iran, Pakistan, and five Central Asian republics. He describes the Taliban’s role as a major player in a new “Great Game”—a competition among Western countries and companies to build oil and gas pipelines from Central Asia to Western and Asian markets. The author also discusses the controversial changes in American attitudes toward the Taliban—from early support to recent bombings of Osama Bin Laden’s hideaway and other Taliban-protected terrorist bases—and how they have influenced the stability of the region.

The Bookseller of Kabul

Asne Seierstad

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Total reviews: 134 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Two weeks after September 11th, award-winning journalist Asne Seierstad went to Afghanistan to report on the conflict there. In the following spring she returned to live with an Afghan family for several months. For more than 20 years Sultan Khan defied the authorities - be they Communist or Taliban - in order to supply books to the people of Kabul. He was arrested, interrogated and imprisoned by the Communists, and watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. He even resorted to hiding most of his stock in attics all over Kabul. But while Khan is passionate in his love of books and hatred of censorship, he is also a committed Muslim with strict views on family life. As an outsider, Seierstad is able to move between the private world of the women - including Khan's two wives - and the more public lives of the men. And so we learn of proposals and marriages, suppression and abuse of power, crime and punishment. The result is a moving portrait of a family and a clear-eyed assessment of a country struggling to free itself from history.

First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan

Gary Schroen

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 39 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Introduction to the War in Afganistan 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

An interesting introduction to the people involved on the ground, just days after 9/11, in the early stages of the war in Afganistan.

The focus is on the interaction between the CIA teams and their Northern Alliance allies. Most of the book covers the inner circle of Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assasinated immediately prior to 9/11. Near the end, you get a brief introduction to Hamid Karzai, the current President of Afganistan. The brief mention of Professor Abdul Sayyaff was a suprise to me. I did not realize the namesake of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group in the Philippines was fighting with the Northern Alliance.

Schroen thinks very highly of himself and, although he seems to respect their capabilities, is compelled to point out mistakes made by the Special Forces operators and the military in general. If you have ever read books by the FBI profiler John Douglas, you will recognize the general tone.

Overall a good book about very brave men who were willing to take significant risks for their country.

Editorial Review:

While America held its breath in the days immediately following 9/11, a small but determined group of CIA agents covertly began to change history. This is the riveting first-person account of the treacherous top-secret mission inside Afghanistan to set the stage for the defeat of the Taliban and launch the war on terror.

As thrilling as any novel, First In is a uniquely intimate look at a mission that began the U.S. retaliation against terrorism–and reclaimed the country of Afghanistan for its people.


From the Hardcover edition.

Roberts Ridge: A Story of Courage and Sacrifice on Takur Ghar Mountain, Afghanistan

Malcolm MacPherson

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Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Afghanistan, March 2002. In the early morning darkness on a frigid mountaintop, a U.S. soldier is stranded, alone, surrounded by fanatical al Qaeda fighters. For the man’s fellow Navy SEALs, and for waiting teams of Army Rangers, there was only one rule now: leave no one behind. In this gripping you-are-there account–based on stunning eyewitness testimony and painstaking research–journalist Malcolm MacPherson thrusts us into a drama of rescue, tragedy, and valor in a place that would be known as...

ROBERTS RIDGE

For an elite team of SEALs, the mission seemed straightforward enough: take control of a towering 10,240-foot mountain peak called Takur Ghar. Launched as part of Operation Anaconda–a hammer-and-anvil plan to smash Taliban al Qaeda in eastern Afghanistan –the taking of Takur Ghar would offer U.S. forces a key strategic observation post. But the enemy was waiting, hidden in a series of camouflaged trenches and bunkers–and when the Special Forces chopper flared on the peak to land, it was shredded by a hail of machine-gun, small arms, and RPG rounds. A red-haired SEAL named Neil Roberts was thrown from the aircraft. And by the time the shattered helicopter crash-landed on the valley floor seven miles away, Roberts’s fellow SEALs were determined to return to the mountain peak and bring him out–no matter what the cost.

Drawing on the words of the men who were there–SEALs, Rangers, medics, combat air controllers, and pilots–this harrowing true account, the first book of its kind to chronicle the battle for Takur Ghar, captures in dramatic detail a seventeen-hour pitched battle fought at the highest elevation Americans have ever waged war. At once an hour-by-hour, bullet-by-bullet chronicle of a landmark battle and a sobering look at the capabilities and limitations of America’s high-tech army, Roberts Ridge is the unforgettable story of a few dozen warriors who faced a single fate: to live or die for their comrades in the face of near-impossible odds.

Afghanistan: A Military History From Alexander The Great To The Fall Of The Taliban

Stephen Tanner

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Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The only complete single-volume military history of Afghanistan, from ancient times to the war waged by the United States after September 11.

Following the events of September 11, 2001, the world was riveted as American military power contested the legendary warrior culture of Afghanistan. By spring 2002, America began to draw down its forces, its mission accomplished: The Afghan Taliban regime has been overthrown and the terrorists it harbored were on the run. Was America's easy victory proof of its military superiority, or were the Afghans merely eyeing the newcomers as they have watched foreign armies in centuries past, knowing time is on their side?

For over 2,500 years, the forbidding territory of Afghanistan has served as a vital crossroads--not just for armies but for clashes between civilizations--the Greeks, Arabs, Mongols, and Tartars, and in more recent times, Britain and Russia. Now America must face a new enemy on this land--a land that for centuries has become a graveyard of empires past.

This first-ever complete military history of Afghanistan illuminates the broad historical context into which American forces have been drawn--a cautionary tale, perhaps, about the dangers that may lie ahead.