num_pages: 712
description: The news-breaking book that has sent shockwaves through the Bush White House, Ghost Wars is the most accurate and revealing account yet of the CIA's secret involvement in al-Qaeda's evolution. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2005.Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll has spent years reporting from the Middle East, accessed previously classified government files and interviewed senior US officials and foreign spymasters. Here he gives the full inside story of the CIA's covert funding of an Islamic jihad against Soviet forces in Afghanistan, explores how this sowed the seeds of Bin Laden's rise, traces how he built his global network and brings to life the dramatic battles within the US government over national security. Above all, he lays bare American intelligence's continual failure to grasp the rising threat of terrorism in the years leading to 9/11 - and its devastating consequences.
language: English
title: Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
titlecomplete: Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
characters: Osama Bin Laden
genres: Politics, Espionage, International Relations, Military Fiction, Terrorism, American History, War, Nonfiction, History, Military History
ratings_count: 16473
awards: awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Pulitzer Prize
category: General Nonfiction, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Lionel Gelber Prize, awardedAt: 1104566400000
name: Arthur Ross Book Award
category: Gold Medal, awardedAt: 1072944000000
name: Cornelius Ryan Award
publisher: Penguin Books (London)