Jihadism
Explore essential books on jihadism with our curated reading list, featuring Ghost Wars by Steve Coll and The Boone System by Percy Kemp—covering political science, espionage, and terrorism history.
Book
Ghost Wars
by Steve Coll
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Nonfiction • A New York Times bestseller “The CIA itself would be hard put to beat his grasp of global events . . . Deeply satisfying.” —The New York Review of Books From the award-winning and bestselling author of Directorate S and The Achilles Trap comes the explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan. To what extent did America’s best intelligence analysts grasp the rising thread 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, Ghost Wars details the secret history of the CIA’s role in Afghanistan (including its covert operations against Soviet troops from 1979 to 1989), 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.
Book
The Boone System
by Percy Kemp
An infamous Islamic militant defects and becomes British Intelligence's single most important source of information about global terrorism. But has he really defected? Exactly who is playing whom here? Beirut-based British Agent Harry Boone is not too sure ...But he's certainly not going to kill himself finding out.