Here are 2 books that Days of Opportunity fans have personally recommended if you like Days of Opportunity. Book DNA is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq

Vassily Klimentov Author Of A Slow Reckoning: The USSR, the Afghan Communists, and Islam

From Vassily's 3 favorite reads in 2024.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Vassily's 3 favorite reads in 2024

Vassily Klimentov Why Vassily loves this book

Steve Coll is known for writing masterful nonfiction books about the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy. This one is no exception. It provides a gripping look into the history of Saddam Hussein's relation with the United States. Relying on American and Iraqi original documents, Coll explains how Saddam Hussein became America's enemy number one after 1990. In addition to brilliantly describing the geopolitical environment, Coll provides the reader with a detailed account of Saddam's personality and mindset. He paints the mesmerizing picture of a brutal dictator who used chemical weapons against his own population and attacked neighbors, and was always strongly anti-American and anti-Semitic. At the same time, Coll demonstrates convincingly the shortcomings of U.S. policy toward Iraq that eventually led to George W. Bush's fateful decision to invade that country in 2003.

By Steve Coll ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Achilles Trap as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

“Excellent . . . A more intimate picture of the dictator’s thinking about world politics, local power and his relationship to the United States than has been seen before.” —The New York Times

“Another triumph from one of our best journalists.” —The Washington Post

"Voluminously researched and compulsively readable." —Air Mail

From bestselling and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Steve Coll, the definitive story of the decades-long relationship between the United States and Saddam Hussein, and a deeply researched and news-breaking investigation into how human error, cultural miscommunication, and hubris led to one of the costliest geopolitical conflicts of our time

When…


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Book cover of Aggressor

Aggressor by FX Holden,

It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.

The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…

Book cover of Unsettling the West: Violence and State Building in the Ohio Valley

Vassily Klimentov Author Of A Slow Reckoning: The USSR, the Afghan Communists, and Islam

From Vassily's 3 favorite reads in 2024.

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Vassily's 3 favorite reads in 2024

Vassily Klimentov Why Vassily loves this book

I do not specialize in U.S. history. I therefore picked up Rob Harper’s book because I wanted to read about a history I knew less about. Listening to it, I was impressed with the level of detail and nuance with which he deals with such a sensitive topic as the colonization of the Ohio Valley. Harper shows the complexity of the relations between Indians and colonists at the crucial time when Indians were increasingly dispossessed of their lands. Despite the violence which characterized the period, local collaborations existed and both colonists and Indians were fragmented groups. I also enjoyed the writing style. Harper vividly depicts the actors from the period. He makes the reader feel as if they were themselves taking part in some of the encounters between colonists and Indians happening in the Ohio Valley. Due to the amount of information, it provides, the book was slightly a tough…

By Rob Harper ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Unsettling the West as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The revolutionary Ohio Valley is often depicted as a chaotic Hobbesian dystopia, in which Indians and colonists slaughtered each other at every turn. In Unsettling the West, Rob Harper overturns this familiar story. Rather than flailing in a morass, the peoples of the revolutionary Ohio Valley actively and persistently sought to establish a new political order that would affirm their land claims, protect them against attack, and promote trade. According to Harper, their efforts repeatedly failed less because of racial antipathy or inexorable competition for land than because of specific state policies that demanded Indian dispossession, encouraged rapid colonization, and…


Book cover of The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A., and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq
Book cover of Unsettling the West: Violence and State Building in the Ohio Valley

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