Here are 100 books that The Unraveling fans have personally recommended if you like
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I am a retired Army officer who served for 43 years. I was also in the Pentagon on 9/11 and knew that life as we knew it would change dramatically. The book I wrote, called The Impossible Mission, is about the drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq and the birth of a small contingent called OSC-I, which I had the privilege to command, with the mission to build the Iraqi security systems. This command allowed me to bring closure to the many years I had to deal with “the war on terrorism” both from a policy perspective and by leading America’s soldiers who were at the front lines fighting the war.
This book tells the story of war from a Soldier’s perspective. He tells the story of what war “actually feels like.”
You get to feel the fear, the bonds of brotherhood, the joys of living, the pain of loss, and to face mortal danger from the eyes of those who face it every day. You will experience war in ways no other American can experience it, and it will move you in a powerful way.
From the author of The Perfect Storm, a gripping book about Sebastian Junger's almost fatal year with the 2nd battalion of the American Army.
For 15 months, Sebastian Junger accompanied a single platoon of thirty men from the celebrated 2nd battalion of the U.S. Army, as they fought their way through a remote valley in Eastern Afghanistan. Over the course of five trips, Junger was in more firefights than he could count, men he knew were killed or wounded, and he himself was almost killed. His relationship with these soldiers grew so close that they considered him part of the…
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…
I am a retired Army officer who served for 43 years. I was also in the Pentagon on 9/11 and knew that life as we knew it would change dramatically. The book I wrote, called The Impossible Mission, is about the drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq and the birth of a small contingent called OSC-I, which I had the privilege to command, with the mission to build the Iraqi security systems. This command allowed me to bring closure to the many years I had to deal with “the war on terrorism” both from a policy perspective and by leading America’s soldiers who were at the front lines fighting the war.
The author, Doug Feith, served as the Department of Defense’s Under Secretary for Policy and was the principal author of the rationale to go to war in Iraq. I served on the Joint Staff for Strategy and Policy, and worked extensively with Mr. Feith.
Why we went to war in Iraq was controversial, but Doug Feith does a marvelous job of connecting the dots, making the case why war with Iraq was essential in the War on Terror, and then developing the strategy to fight that war.
If anyone wants to know the background on why we went to war, you must read this book.
In War and Decision, former Pentagon policy chief Douglas J. Feith puts readers in the room with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and others as they considered how to prevent another 9/11. Drawing on thousands of previously undisclosed written sources, Feith offers the first inside view of these events as they unfolded. Through vivid narrative, frank analysis, and elegant writing, his account forever changes our understanding of this challenging era.
I am a retired Army officer who served for 43 years. I was also in the Pentagon on 9/11 and knew that life as we knew it would change dramatically. The book I wrote, called The Impossible Mission, is about the drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq and the birth of a small contingent called OSC-I, which I had the privilege to command, with the mission to build the Iraqi security systems. This command allowed me to bring closure to the many years I had to deal with “the war on terrorism” both from a policy perspective and by leading America’s soldiers who were at the front lines fighting the war.
As the former Commandant and Superintendent of West Point, I came to love and admire the young cadets who came to West Point to serve their country, knowing full well they would join an Army at war, putting their lives at risk, and yet they still came.
This book is about a West Point graduate who was not only a West Point graduate, but also a Rhodes Scholar, and after all of his education, found himself in the harsh and most deadly places in Afghanistan, leading a platoon of 40 young men who were in combat fighting for their lives and each other, almost every day.
This is a marvelous story, and it brought me closely into the lives of the junior leaders who are standing in the gap between the evil that threatens our nation and the American people. I can’t help but admire their strength, wisdom, commitment, honor,…
“The Unforgiving Minute is one of the most compelling memoirs yet to emerge from America's 9/11 era. Craig Mullaney has given us an unusually honest, funny, accessible, and vivid account of a soldier's coming of age. This is more than a soldier's story; it is a work of literature." —Steve Coll, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars and The Bin Ladens
"One of the most thoughtful and honest accounts ever written by a young Army officer confronting all the tests of life." —Bob Woodward
In this surprise bestseller, West Point grad, Rhodes scholar, Airborne Ranger, and U. S. Army…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I am a retired Army officer who served for 43 years. I was also in the Pentagon on 9/11 and knew that life as we knew it would change dramatically. The book I wrote, called The Impossible Mission, is about the drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq and the birth of a small contingent called OSC-I, which I had the privilege to command, with the mission to build the Iraqi security systems. This command allowed me to bring closure to the many years I had to deal with “the war on terrorism” both from a policy perspective and by leading America’s soldiers who were at the front lines fighting the war.
This is an emotional and moving story of a young officer who was badly injured in Iraq and lost all his eyesight from that injury.
But that did not stop him. He stayed on active duty, went to Duke and got his master's degree, returned to his alma mater, West Point, to command the headquarters company, and then taught the next generation of America’s Army leaders while at West Point.
If I want to see what is right with America, I need to go no further than to read this book about Captain Scotty Smiley. His story made me proud. It made me hurt for him. But it made me admire and respect him so much.
This is a story that will enlighten all of America, as it has enlightened me.
The inspiring, unflinching true story of "blind" faith, as Major Scotty Smiley awakes in a hospital bed and realizes his world is permanently dark he must stretch his faith like never before. Courageous, heartfelt, and honest, Hope Unseen challenges readers to question their doubts, not their beliefs, and depend upon God no matter what.
A nervous glance from a man in a parked car. Muted instincts from a soldier on patrol. Violent destruction followed by total darkness. Two weeks later, Scotty Smiley woke up in Walter Reed Army Medical Center, helpless . . . and blind.
I have been a teacher, writer, scholar, and, above all, a critic of social injustice for my entire professional life. My experience living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank informed my critical voice around issues of language, knowledge, history, and policy in and about the Middle East, leading to the publication of my two scholarly monographs: Palestine in the American Mind: The Discourse on Palestine in the Contemporary United States and Palestine-Israel in the Print News Media: Contending Discourses. The titles I introduce here have been vital to my ongoing education on these issues and in my continuing advocacy for peace and justice in Palestine, the Middle East, and around the world.
I would not be the historian or social critic I am today without the guidance of the scholarship of Stephen Kinzer. From his prolific histories about Iran or the Middle East more broadly to his courageous dissection of the international crimes of the CIA, Kinzer’s views on American foreign policy are as relevant as they are important for the development of a complete worldview of contemporary international politics.
In this book, Kinzer brings all of these tools to bear in demonstrating how, time and again, the United States pursued selfish interests to the detriment of millions around the globe, usually with power and riches subsequently being shifted into the hands of American political elites.
Kinzer’s book is informative, provocative, and engaging and, therefore, makes for a necessary companion to my own work in this field.
Stephen Kinzer's Overthrow provides a fast-paced narrative history of the coups, revolutions, and invasions by which the United States has toppled fourteen foreign governments -- not always to its own benefit
"Regime change" did not begin with the administration of George W. Bush, but has been an integral part of U.S. foreign policy for more than one hundred years. Starting with the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and continuing through the Spanish-American War and the Cold War and into our own time, the United States has not hesitated to overthrow governments that stood in the way of its…
“The truth is exactly the opposite of the words” - I just noticed on my door, I still have an old sticker that bears those words. I guess, I’ve tended to find that common-sense assumptions about major things – politics, religion, war, love, good and evil, relationships, and so on – are simply not accurate and more the results of lazy thinking, ignorance, politics, or ideology. I did a PhD in propaganda, which led me to an eclectic freelance career investigating conspiracy theories, making documentaries, writing novels, doing stand-up comedy, and suchlike – so I have a background in engaging big and crazy ideas.
Saddam Hussein – the dictator of Iraq – was the West’s defining turn-of-the-century uber-villain, an image which this book overturns on a deeply personal level. While Saddam is shown to be a monster (he casually laments how his sadistic sons took it a bit far), he nonetheless somehow wins the compassion of his American captors who fall to blubbering pieces as he proceeds to the gallows.
The Prisoner in His Palace is an evocative and thought-provoking account of how the lives of twelve young American soldiers deployed to Iraq are upended when they're asked to guard the most 'high-value detainee' of all, the notorious dictator Saddam Hussein. What the self-dubbed 'Super Twelve' experience in the autumn of 2006 is cognitive dissonance at its most extreme. Expecting to engage with the enemy 'outside the wire', they're suddenly tasked with guarding and protecting a notorious dictator until he can be hanged. Watching over Saddam in a former palace the soldiers dub 'The Rock' and regularly transporting their prisoner…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
As I write this, I massage aching bits of shrapnel still embedded beneath silvered scars. I’ve read many Vietnam War stories—praising the war, glorifying combat, condemning the war. My stories are 1st person limited POV, voice of a twenty-year-old sailor. My title is a spin-off of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. By the time I wrote my memoir, I realized that our national goals in Vietnam had been Muddy from the beginning. I too, traveled Jungle Rivers. During my time on the riverboat, I witnessed Rivers of blood—rivers of life, trickle across our deck. And yes, Jungle is a fitting metaphor for our life at that time.
McMaster’s book confirms the corruption, lies, and hubris of national leaders, including the military during the Vietnam era. As a high-ranking officer in the army, I found his in-depth analysis of deception at the top levels very troubling. This is a must-read for every person interested in our history—especially to understand the mistakes of the Vietnam War—the quagmire that pulled us in.
"The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the New York Times or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C." -H. R. McMaster (from the Conclusion) Dereliction Of Duty is a stunning analysis of how and why the United States became involved in an all-out and disastrous war in Southeast Asia. Fully and convincingly researched, based on transcripts and personal accounts of crucial meetings, confrontations and decisions, it is the only book that fully re-creates what happened and why. McMaster pinpoints the policies and decisions that got…
I'm a Communication professor at Fresno Pacific University and former Fulbright grantee to Jordan. Growing up in west Texas I was always fascinated with other countries. I encountered Arabic in college, and I quickly fell in love with a language and society that reminded me so much of my home—in fact, the word “haboob” is used by Texas farmers and Bedouin herders alike to describe a violent dust storm. While I was teaching English in Amman, I realized how much I enjoy learning how different cultures come to understand one another. My driving passion is to explore the centuries-long rhetorical history tying Americans and Middle Easterners together in mutual webs of (mis)representation, and this topic has never been more relevant than today.
A highly readable tome, Cooper’s account of how the oil politics of the 1970s revolutionized U.S. foreign policy and the Persian Gulf is a must-read for anyone who wants to know more about the political landscape of the Middle East. Cooper traces the personal interactions among the Shah of Iran, Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Gerald Ford, and the House of Saud in the midst of the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the consequent oil embargo, the formation of OPEC, and the early stirrings of revolution in Iran. Perhaps most helpful, this book dispels many misperceptions about Iran under the Shah while also showing how the United States played an integral role in weakening his regime prior to the 1979 revolution.
“Relying on a rich cache of previously classified notes, transcripts, cables, policy briefs, and memoranda, Andrew Cooper explains how oil drove, even corrupted, American foreign policy during a time when Cold War imperatives still applied,”* and tells why in the 1970s the U.S. switched its Middle East allegiance from the Shah of Iran to the Saudi royal family.
While America struggles with a recess ion, oil prices soar, revolution rocks the Middle East, European nations risk defaulting on their loans, and the world teeters on the brink of a possible global financial crisis. This is not a description of the…
I take great pride in having somehow turned a passion for visiting presidential libraries into an academic career. I’ve now conducted extensive research at eight of them, and have future projects lined up to get me to the rest. This experience means I can and frequently do ruin family gatherings by challenging distant relations to quizzes about obscure details involving presidential pets. But it has also left me well-placed to write a number of articles and books exploring how domestic politics shapes the development and execution of U.S. foreign policy. I’ve done this while affiliated with the University of Oxford and, more recently, at City, University of London.
This was the book that got me hooked on the study of U.S. foreign policy.
I vividly remember debating the grammatical merits of the word “intermestic” with my undergraduate adviser. (Full disclosure: he was a skeptic; I was in favour.) But we both agreed that the term it introduced to describe the connection between the international and domestic dimensions of policy was fundamentally apt.
This remains my go-to book to get up to speed on the domestic politics of any major foreign policy challenge of the Cold War period. And it should be yours, too.
"A creative, carefully researched, and incisive analysis of U.S. strategy during the long struggle against the Soviet Union." -Stephen M. Walt, Foreign Policy
"Craig and Logevall remind us that American foreign policy is decided as much by domestic pressures as external threats. America's Cold War is history at its provocative best." -Mark Atwood Lawrence, author of The Vietnam War
The Cold War dominated world affairs during the half century following World War II. America prevailed, but only after fifty years of grim international struggle, costly wars in Korea and Vietnam, trillions of dollars in military spending, and decades of nuclear…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
I have always been interested in the politics of democracy and dictatorship. Governing is a funny business: the masses must entrust a very few to lead them, and often with vast power. Where does that trust come from? And why do some rulers act so viciously while others serve with grace? Understanding these very human concerns is a worthy pursuit of knowledge.
In the twenty-first century, the US began promoting democracy in the Middle East, either by war (as in Iraq) or through peaceful diplomacy, as in everywhere else. The problem, as this book divulges, is that transplanting American political and cultural values into the Arab world was bound to create unacceptable outcomes. Among them was the rise of Islamist movements, whose ideas seemed repugnant to many Americans. The cunning solution to this contradiction: the US should still call for elections in the region as a political goal, but leave all talk of cultural and social freedoms aside.
Shadi Hamid reimagines the ongoing debate on democracy's merits and proposes an ambitious agenda for reviving the lost art of democracy promotion in the world's most undemocratic regions.
What happens when democracy produces "bad" outcomes? Is democracy good because of its outcomes or despite them? This "democratic dilemma" is one of the most persistent, vexing problems for America abroad, particularly in the Middle East-we want democracy in theory but not necessarily in practice.
When Islamist parties rise to power through free elections, the United States has too often been ambivalent or opposed, preferring instead pliable dictators. With this legacy of…
