Ghost Wars or God Man at Yale

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

Author: Steve Coll

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 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. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Interesting textbook: The Twelve Step Life Recovery Devotional or The Portion Teller

God & Man at Yale

Author: William F Buckley

In 1951, a twenty-five-year old Yale graduate published his first book, which exposed the extraordinarily irresponsible educational attitude that prevailed at his alma mater. This book rocked the academic world and catapulted its young author, William F. Buckley Jr., into the public spotlight.

Peter Viereck

...Has a young Saint Paul emerged from the Yale class of 1950 to bring us the long-awaited Good tidings of a New Conservatism and Old Morality? The trumpets of advance publicity imply it. However, this Paul-in-a-hurry skips the preequisite of first being a rebel Saul. the difference between the easy, booster affirmation that precedes the dark night of the soul and the hard-won, tragic affirmation that follows it... Books of the Century, New York Times review, November,1951