With the death of Osama bin Laden dominating headlines, here are two must-have books, both by Steve Coll.
Ghost Wars won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction. It's an explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan. The book made Coll an expert on the rise of the Taliban, emergence of bin Laden and secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill him.
In The Bin Ladens, Coll continues where Ghost Wars left off, shedding new light on the elusive family. Rising from a famine-stricken desert into luxury, private compounds and even business deals with Hollywood celebrities, the bin Ladens benefited from tensions and contradictions in places founded on extreme religious purity, suddenly thrust into a world awash in oil, money and western temptations. But what do these incongruities mean for globalization, the war on terror and America's place in the Middle East?
Penguin Books
New York, United States
(May 6, 2011)
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