Directorate S

Regular price €23.99
A01=Steve Coll
afghanistan papers
afghanistan war
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
ahmed rashid taliban
anatol lieven
Author_Steve Coll
automatic-update
best non fiction books 2023
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBLX
Category=HBWS4
Category=JPSH
Category=JWL
Category=NHWR9
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
dominic lieven
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
espionage
kabul
Language_English
lawrence wright
malcolm gladwell
michael moore
military
military history
non fiction
non fiction books
PA=Available
political
political books
political books 2023
politics
politics books
politics books bestsellers 2023
politics gifts
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
softlaunch
ta nehisi coates
taliban ahmed rashid
the ledger afghanistan
tim weiner
war

Product details

  • ISBN 9780718194499
  • Weight: 552g
  • Dimensions: 130 x 199mm
  • Publication Date: 07 Feb 2019
  • Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
  • Language: English
Delivery/Collection within 10-20 working days

Our Delivery Time Frames Explained
2-4 Working Days: Available in-stock

10-20 Working Days
: On Backorder

Will Deliver When Available
: On Pre-Order or Reprinting

We ship your order once all items have arrived at our warehouse and are processed. Need those 2-4 day shipping items sooner? Just place a separate order for them!

Winner of the the National Book Critics Circle Award for Non-Fiction

'Spellbinding ... a magisterial account of the great tragedy of our age ... it is a classic' Evening Standard

'In the finest traditions of American investigative journalism' The Times

'Spectacular ... makes Bourne movies pale in comparison' Financial Times


From the Pulitzer Prize winning of the acclaimed Ghost Wars, this is the full story of America's grim involvement in the affairs of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2016. In the wake of the terrible shock of 9/11, the C.I.A. scrambled to work out how to destroy Bin Laden and his associates. The C.I.A. had long familiarity with Afghanistan and had worked closely with the Taliban to defeat the Soviet Union there. A tangle of assumptions, old contacts, favours and animosities were now reactivated. Superficially the invasion was quick and efficient, but Bin Laden's successful escape, together with that of much of the Taliban leadership, and a catastrophic failure to define the limits of NATO's mission in a tough, impoverished country the size of Texas, created a quagmire which lasted many years.

At the heart of the problem lay 'Directorate S', a highly secretive arm of the Pakistan state which had its own views on the Taliban and Afghanistan's place in a wider competition for influence between Pakistan, India and China, and which assumed that the U.S.A. and its allies would soon be leaving.

Steve Coll's remarkable new book tells a powerful, bitter story of just how badly foreign policy decisions can go wrong and of many lives lost.

Steve Coll is dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. His major books include Private Empire, The Bin Ladens and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars. He is a staff writer on The New Yorker.