Achilles Trap

Regular price €38.99
Regular price €39.99 Sale Sale price €38.99
9/11
A01=Steve Coll
afghanistan
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
al qaeda
american politics
Author_Steve Coll
automatic-update
best non fiction books 2023
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBLW3
Category=HBLX
Category=HBW
Category=JPHL
Category=JPSL
Category=NHWR9
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
diplomacy
directorate s
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
geopolitics
george bush
ghost wars
heritage of power
iraq war
Language_English
legacy of lies
middle east
military science non-fiction
non fiction
non fiction books
PA=Available
political biographies
political books
political books 2023
political history
politics
politics books
politics books bestsellers 2023
politics gifts
politics of humiliation
Price_€20 to €50
private empire
PS=Active
shadow wars
softlaunch
the looming tower
tony blair
us politics books
war history
ww2 non-fiction non-fiction

Product details

  • ISBN 9780241686652
  • Weight: 989g
  • Dimensions: 162 x 240mm
  • Publication Date: 27 Feb 2024
  • Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • 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!

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2024**

**A BEST BOOK OF 2024 BY THE NEW YORKER**

From the Pulitzer Prize winner and bestselling author of Ghost Wars, the inside story of America's long and ruinous relationship with Saddam Hussein

The Achilles Trap masterfully untangles the people, ploys of power and geopolitics that led to America's disastrous war with Iraq and, for the first time, details America's fundamental miscalculations during its ruinous, decades-long relationship with Saddam Hussein.

Beginning with Saddam's rise to power in 1979 and the birth of Iraq's secret nuclear weapons programme, Steve Coll traces Saddam's motives through understanding his inner circle. He brings to life the diplomats, scientists, family members and generals who had no choice but to defer to their leader - a leader directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, as well as the torture or imprisonment of many more. This was a man whose reasoning was impossible to reduce to a simple explanation, and the CIA and successive presidential administrations failed to grasp critical nuances in his paranoia, resentments and inconsistencies - even when the stakes were incredibly high.

Using unpublished and underreported sources, interviews with surviving participants, and Saddam's own transcripts and audio files, The Achilles Trap is a remarkable picture of a dictator who was convinced the world was out to get him and acted accordingly. A work of great historical significance, it is the definitive account of how corruptions of power, lies of diplomacy and vanity - on both sides - led to avoidable errors of statecraft: ones that would enact immeasurable human suffering and forever change our political landscape.

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 for The New Yorker.