Ghost Wars

Steve Coll's history follows the CIA in Afghanistan from the Soviet invasion to the day before the September 11 attacks. Using firsthand accounts from intelligence, military and government figures, American and foreign, it covers the covert campaign against Soviet troops from 1979 to 1989, bin Laden's emergence, the Taliban's rise and repeated American attempts to track him down and kill him that came to nothing. Coll pays close attention to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence and how it spent American and Saudi funds on camps along the border that trained militant fighters from across the Arab world. It won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction and the Lionel Gelber Prize, and an expanded edition added the findings of the 9/11 Commission.

It appears on a list of books Barack Obama recommended during his presidency, and Bogdan Savonea, CEO of TPS Engage, said he was rereading it and described it as an account of what really happened behind the scenes in Afghanistan.