Overview
"In its earliest days, the American-led war in Afghanistan appeared to be a triumph--a ""good war""--in comparison to the debacle in Iraq. It has since turned into one of the longest and most costly wars in U.S. history. The story of how this good war went so bad may well turn out to be a defining tragedy of the 21st century--yet as acclaimed war correspondent Jack Fairweather explains, it should also give us reason to hope for an outcome grounded in Afghan reality, rather than our own. In The Good War, Fairweather provides the first full narrative history of the war in Afghanistan, from its inception after 9/11 to the drawdown in 2014. Drawing on hundreds of interviews, previously unpublished archives, and months of reporting in Afghanistan, Fairweather explores the righteous intentions and astounding hubris that caused the American strategy in Afghanistan to flounder, refuting the long-held notion that the war could have been won with more troops and cash. Fairweather argues that only by accepting the limitations in Afghanistan--from the presence of the Taliban to the ubiquity of the opium trade to the country's unsuitability for rapid, Western-style development--can America help to restore peace in this shattered land. A timely lesson in the perils of nation-building and a sobering reminder of the limits of American power, The Good War leads readers from the White House situation room to American military outposts, from warlords' palaces to insurgents' dens, to explain how the U.S. and its allies might have salvaged the Afghan campaign--and how we must rethink other ""good"" wars in the future."
Full Product Details
Author: Jack Fairweather
Publisher: Basic Books
Imprint: Basic Books
Dimensions:
Width: 16.50cm
, Height: 3.20cm
, Length: 24.10cm
Weight: 0.680kg
ISBN: 9780465044955
ISBN 10: 0465044956
Pages: 416
Publication Date: 11 November 2014
Recommended Age: From 13
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Available To Order
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Reviews
Fairweather's richly-narrated history of the conflict is a soft-spoken but scathing indictment of military tactics and lack of preparation. --Publishers Weekly A thorough, elegant reassessment of America's 'irresistible illusion.' --Kirkus Reviews A remarkable account of the longest shooting war in American history. The Good War is the kind of book one would not ordinarily expect to see for decades, encyclopedic in sweep and yet rich with colorful detail. Jack Fairweather writes with respect but often damning insight. He seems to have digested everything written about the war, and to have talked with every player, open and clandestine. This timely, absorbing narrative captures the essence of an infuriating place, illustrating once again a seemingly unlearnable lesson: There are strict limits to what can be accomplished by force. --Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War It has been America's longest war, yet there is no real history of the conflict in Afghanistan. Now this war has finally found its chronicler. Jack Fairweather has reported deeply from the White House Situation Room to the deserts of Kandahar to tell a riveting story with an outsized cast of characters. It's a sweeping work of history written with great verve. --Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad At last, an intrepid war reporter has woven together his insights from the battlefield, the unadorned views of grunts, and the political calculations of Washington to reveal the entire history of the war in Afghanistan. The result is a superb history, compassionate, comprehensive, and eminently readable. Like the best accounts of war, it shows how our aims going into a conflict are all too swiftly undercut by reality on the ground. Bravo Zulu! --Bing West, author of The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq and One Million Steps: a Marine Platoon at War The Good War is a tour de force--a riveting, clear-eyed account of the troubled US-led war in Afghanistan. Jack Fairweather has shown himself to be a narrative historian of the first order. For anyone seeking an honest appraisal of what went wrong and why, this book is a must-read. --Jon Lee Anderson, author of The Lion's Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan
A remarkable account of the longest shooting war in American history. The Good War is the kind of book one would not ordinarily expect to see for decades, encyclopedic in sweep and yet rich with colorful detail. Jack Fairweather writes with respect but often damning insight. He seems to have digested everything written about the war, and to have talked with every player, open and clandestine. This timely, absorbing narrative captures the essence of an infuriating place, illustrating once again a seemingly unlearnable lesson: There are strict limits to what can be accomplished by force. --Mark Bowden, author of Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War It has been America's longest war, yet there is no real history of the conflict in Afghanistan. Now this war has finally found its chronicler. Jack Fairweather has reported deeply from the White House Situation Room to the deserts of Kandahar to tell a riveting story with an outsized cast of characters. It's a sweeping work of history written with great verve. --Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad At last, an intrepid war reporter has woven together his insights from the battlefield, the unadorned views of grunts, and the political calculations of Washington to reveal the entire history of the war in Afghanistan. The result is a superb history, compassionate, comprehensive, and eminently readable. Like the best accounts of war, it shows how our aims going into a conflict are all too swiftly undercut by reality on the ground. Bravo Zulu! --Bing West, author of The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq and One Million Steps: a Marine Platoon at War The Good War is a tour de force--a riveting, clear-eyed account of the troubled US-led war in Afghanistan. Jack Fairweather has shown himself to be a narrative historian of the first order. For anyone seeking an honest appraisal of what went wrong and why, this book is a must-read. --Jon Lee Anderson, author of The Lion's Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan [A] gripping and detailed narrative... Fairweather breaks new ground with a number of assertions that challenge conventional wisdom, such as a reappraisal of Afghan president Hamid Karzai, long blamed by Washington for the war's failings... Perhaps most notably, Fairweather contradicts the accepted wisdom that the failure of Western effort in Afghanistan is due to a lack of resources and manpower, and that Iraq distracted the Bush administration at a critical time. --Publishers Weekly
Author Information
A former foreign correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and the Washington Post, Jack Fairweather won the British Press Award for his reporting on the Iraq invasion and is the author of A War of Choice. Fairweather is currently a Middle East editor and correspondent for Bloomberg News, and he lives in Istanbul with his wife and two daughters.
