The Ultimate AfPak Reading List

Peter Bergen recently posted “a guide to the most critical readings on Afghanistan and Pakistan,” at Foreign Policy. In his words:

What follows is the Ultimate AfPak Reading List — an amalgamation of syllabi from classes I’ve taught at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard and the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. I’ve included a variety of reading, from books I’ve found particularly insightful on the topic to significant reporting on everything from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to al Qaeda’s media strategy.

I thought this list might be of interest to some of the young military brains that peruse my humble blog from time to time…I promise people actually do read this blog…right?  Dad?

The list is LONG, but good, so I’m cherry-picking some of the Afghanistan and Al Qaeda material, view the entire list here.

Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion, 1979-1989 & the Rise of the Taliban, 1994-2001

* Bearden, Milton. “Graveyard of Empires, Afghanistan’s Treacherous Peaks.” In How Did This Happen? Terrorism and the New War. Ed. Gideon Rose and James F. Hoge Jr. (New York: Public Affairs, 2001).

* Bradsher, Henry. Afghan Communism and Soviet Intervention. (London: Oxford University Press, 1999).

* Crile, George. Charlie Wilson’s War, The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History. (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003).

* Feifer, Gregory. The Great Gamble: the Soviet War in Afghanistan (New York: Harper Collins, 2009).

* Urban, Mark. War in Afghanistan. (London: Macmillan Press, 1988).

* Yousaf, Mohammad and Mark Adkin. Afghanistan — The Bear: The Defeat of a Superpower. (London: Leo Cooper, 1992).

Afghanistan: Under the Taliban 1994-2001 & the Rise of the Religious Warriors and Their Al Qaeda Allies

* Dorronsoro, Gilles. Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to Present. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). Dense, authoritative study.

* Gutman, Roy. How We Missed the Story: Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and the Hijacking of Afghanistan (Washington, DC: USIP Press, 2008).

* Maley, William, ed. Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban. (New York: New York University Press, 1998).

* Rashid, Ahmed. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001. (Paperback Edition)

Afghanistan: The Resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda from the Battle of Tora Bora in the Winter of 2001 to Today

* Bernsten, Gary. Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. (New York: Crown, 2005). CIA officer recounts the fall of Taliban and the battle of Tora Bora.

* Naylor, Sean. Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda. (New York: Berkeley Publishing Group, 2005). Army Times reporter gives a deeply reported account of Operation Anaconda.

* Schroen, Gary. First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan. (New York: Ballantine, 2005).

* Fury, Dalton. Kill Bin Laden: A Delta Force Commander’s Account of the Hunt for the World’s Most Wanted Man (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2008).

* Chayes, Sarah. The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban. (New York: Penguin, 2006). A journalist-turned-aid worker based in Kandahar for four years after the fall of the Taliban provides an interesting and important account of mistakes made by all the players in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

* Dobbins, James. After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan (Dulles, VA: Potomac Press, 2008).

* Giustozzi, Antonio. Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: the Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).

* Johnson, Chris and Leslie, Jolyon. Afghanistan: The Mirage of Peace. (London: Zed Books, 2004). Two long time aid workers paint a bleak picture of Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban.

* Jones, Seth. In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan. (New York: Norton, 2009).

* Kilcullen, David. The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

* Maley, William. Rescuing Afghanistan. (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2007). A concise book that examines the problems and possible solutions in Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban government.

* Rashid, Ahmed. Descent into Chaos: The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. (New York: Penguin, 2008).

* Semple, Michael. Reconciliation in Afghanistan. (Washington, DC: USIP Press, 2009).

Al Qaeda: General Interest

* 9/11 Commission Report. (New York: Norton, 2004). An authoritative account and actually a good read, surprisingly so for a government report.

* Atwan, Abdel-Bari. The Secret History of al-Qa’ida. (California: University of California Press, 2006). A concise primer.

* Anonymous/Scheuer, Michael. Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam and the Future of America. (Washington, DC: Brasseys, 2002). (Paperback edition). Written by the former head of the bin Laden unit at CIA. Well researched, analytically sharp.

* Bergen, Peter. The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al Qaeda’s Leader. (New York: Free Press, 2006). A collection of interviews with those who have known bin Laden and key documents such as the founding minutes of al Qaeda.

* Bergen, Peter. Holy War, Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden. (New York: Touchstone, 2002). Reporting on the ground about al Qaeda around the world. Easy read (I think.)

* Burke, Jason. Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror. (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2003). A really sharp combination of on the ground reporting and analysis.

* Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. (New York: Penguin Press, 2004). (Paperback edition) Deeply reported. Won the Pulitzer for best non-fiction book of 2004.

* Coll, Steve. The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century (New York: Penguin Press, 2008). An absorbing read about a family caught between the 7th and 21st centuries. Finalist for a Pulitzer in 2008.

* Lia, Brynjar. Architect of Global Jihad: the Life of Al Qaeda Strategist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008).

* Sageman, Marc. Understanding Terror Networks. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). Sageman’s groundbreaking sociological analysis of who joins al Qaeda and affiliated groups.

* Wright, Laurence. The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. (New York: Knopf, 2006). A gripping narrative of the jihadist movement from its birth in Egypt in the mid-20th century up until 9/11. Won the Pulitzer Prize for best non-fiction book of 2006.

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