“What are the best books about The Iraq war?” We looked at 244 of the top Iraq War books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!
The top 39 titles, all appearing on 2 or more “Best Iraq War” book lists, are ranked below by how many lists they appear on. The remaining 200+ titles, as well as the lists we used are in alphabetical order at the bottom of the page.
Happy Scrolling!
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Years ago, noting that Kurds—the largest ethnic group in the world without their own country—were involved in every major story he covered in Iran, Israel, Turkey, Lebanon, and Iraq, veteran reporter Jonathan Randal decided to produce this first-hand report on Kurdistan, a shocking, tragic account of diplomacy and politics in the Middle East, and a gripping adventure story about being a war reporter in the 1990s.Throughout the Kurds’ history, world powers have promised to help them achieve autonomy, and each time the Kurds have been betrayed. But they are also masters of betrayal: Randal, recording their talent for vehement internecine warfare and their gift for friendship, takes us behind the headlines to the inner story of power politics in the Middle East. His sympathetic knowledge of Kurdish history and his unparalleled access to Kurdish leaders and to diplomats, ministers, intelligence agents, warriors, and journalists makes him the only writer able to get this story for us and discover the truth.
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After twelve months of military service in Iraq, Michael Anthony stepped off a plane, seemingly happy to be home—or at least back on US soil. He was twenty-one years old, a bit of a nerd, and carrying a pack of cigarettes that he thought would be his last. Two weeks later, Michael was stoned on Vicodin, drinking way too much, and picking a fight with a very large Hell’s Angel. At his wit’s end, he came to an agreement with himself: If things didn’t improve in three months, he was going to kill himself. (But in the meantime, he had some dating classes to attend.) Civilianized is a surprising and dark-humored memoir that chronicles Michael’s search for meaning in a suddenly destabilized world.
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A stunning work of investigative journalism, Cobra II describes in riveting detail how the American rush to Baghdad provided the opportunity for the virulent insurgency that followed. As Gordon and Trainor show, the brutal aftermath was not inevitable and was a surprise to the generals on both sides. Based on access to unseen documents and exclusive interviews with the men and women at the heart of the war, Cobra II provides firsthand accounts of the fighting on the ground and the high-level planning behind the scenes. Now with a new afterword that addresses what transpired after the fateful events of the summer of 2003, this is a peerless re-creation and analysis of the central event of our times.
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These stories aren’t pretty and they aren’t for the faint of heart. They are realistic, haunting and shocking. And they are all unforgettable. Television reports, movies, newspapers and blogs about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have offered images of the fighting there. But this collection offers voices—powerful voices, telling the kind of truth that only fiction can offer. What makes the collection so remarkable is that all of these stories are written by those who were there, or waited for them at home. The anthology, which features a Foreword by National Book Award winner Colum McCann, includes the best voices of the our wars’ generation: Brian Turner, whose poem “Hurt Locker” was the movie’s inspiration; Colby Buzzell, whose book My War resonates with countless veterans; Siobhan Fallon, whose book You Know When the Men Are Gone echoes the joy and pain of the spouses left behind; Matt Gallagher, whose book Kaboom captures the hilarity and horror of the modern military experience; and nine others.
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It’s the rule-always watch your fives and twenty-fives. When a convoy halts to investigate a possible roadside bomb, stay in the vehicle and scan five meters in every direction. A bomb inside five meters cuts through the armor, killing everyone in the truck. Once clear, get out and sweep twenty-five meters. A bomb inside twenty-five meters kills the dismounted scouts investigating the road ahead. Fives and twenty-fives mark the measure of a marine’s life in the road repair platoon. Dispatched to fill potholes on the highways of Iraq, the platoon works to assure safe passage for citizens and military personnel. Their mission lacks the glory of the infantry, but in a war where every pothole contains a hidden bomb, road repair brings its own danger. Lieutenant Donavan leads the platoon, painfully aware of his shortcomings and isolated by his rank. Doc Pleasant, the medic, joined for opportunity, but finds his pride undone as he watches friends die. And there’s Kateb, known to the Americans as Dodge, an Iraqi interpreter whose love of American culture-from hip-hop to the dog-eared copy of Huck Finn he carries-is matched only by his disdain for what Americans are doing to his country. Returning home, they exchange one set of decisions and repercussions for another, struggling to find a place in a world that no longer knows them. A debut both transcendent and rooted in the flesh, Fives and Twenty-Fives is a deeply necessary novel.
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From hardened soldiers to wartime journalists to endangered Iraqi citizens, From Baghdad, With Love tells the unforgettable true story of an unlikely band of heroes who learn unexpected lessons about life, death, and war from a mangy little flea-ridden refugee.
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During the recent war in Iraq, renowned historian Rick Atkinson was embedded with the 101st Airbourne Division of the US forces. He had access to the headquarters command post and the top-secret plans tent and spent most days at the elbow of Major General David H. Petraeus as he directed attacks on the cities of Najaf, Karbala, Hilla and, ultimately, southern Baghdad. This short book, written with a strong first-person narrative, will not only provide a unique insight into the course of events; using the microcosm of the 101st, Atkinson will also reveal much about the contemporary US military and the soldiers who compose it. In his unique hands this book is set to become a classic of war journalism and the only book to buy for an insider’s account of America’s war in Iraq.
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Anthony Swofford’s Jarhead is the first Gulf War memoir by a frontline infantry marine, and it is a searing, unforgettable narrative. When the marines — or “jarheads,” as they call themselves — were sent in 1990 to Saudi Arabia to fight the Iraqis, Swofford was there, with a hundred-pound pack on his shoulders and a sniper’s rifle in his hands. It was one misery upon another. He lived in sand for six months, his girlfriend back home betrayed him for a scrawny hotel clerk, he was punished by boredom and fear, he considered suicide, he pulled a gun on one of his fellow marines, and he was shot at by both Iraqis and Americans. At the end of the war, Swofford hiked for miles through a landscape of incinerated Iraqi soldiers and later was nearly killed in a booby-trapped Iraqi bunker. Swofford weaves this experience of war with vivid accounts of boot camp (which included physical abuse by his drill instructor), reflections on the mythos of the marines, and remembrances of battles with lovers and family. As engagement with the Iraqis draws closer, he is forced to consider what it is to be an American, a soldier, a son of a soldier, and a man. Unlike the real-time print and television coverage of the Gulf War, which was highly scripted by the Pentagon, Swofford’s account subverts the conventional wisdom that U.S. military interventions are now merely surgical insertions of superior forces that result in few American casualties. Jarhead insists we remember the Americans who are in fact wounded or killed, the fields of smoking enemy corpses left behind, and the continuing difficulty that American soldiers have reentering civilian life.
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After graduating from Princeton, Donovan Campbell, motivated by his unwavering patriotism and commitment, decided to join the service, realizing that becoming a Marine officer would allow him to give back to his country, engage in the world, and learn to lead. In this immediate, thrilling, and inspiring memoir, Campbell recounts a timeless and transcendent tale of brotherhood, courage, and sacrifice. As commander of a forty-man infantry platoon called Joker One, Campbell had just months to train and transform a ragtag group of brand-new Marines into a first-rate cohesive fighting unit, men who would become his family: Sergeant Leza, the house intellectual who read Che Guevara; Sergeant Mariano Noriel, the “Filipino ball of fire” who would become Campbell’s closest confidant and friend; Lance Corporal William Feldmeir, a narcoleptic who fell asleep during battle; and a lieutenant known simply as “the Ox,” whose stubborn aggressiveness would be more curse than blessing. Campbell and his men were assigned to Ramadi, that capital of the Sunni-dominated Anbar province that was an explosion just waiting to happen. And when it did happen–with the chilling cries of “Jihad, Jihad, Jihad!” echoing from minaret to minaret–Campbell and company were there to protect the innocent, battle the insurgents, and pick up the pieces. After seven months of day-to-day, house-to-house combat, nearly half of Campbell’s platoon had been wounded, a casualty rate that went beyond that of any Marine or Army unit since Vietnam. Yet unlike Fallujah, Ramadi never fell to the enemy. Told by the man who led the unit of hard-pressed Marines, Joker One is a gripping tale of a leadership, loyalty, faith, and camaraderie throughout the best and worst of times.
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As the American diplomat chosen by President Bush to direct the reconstruction of post-Saddam Iraq, L. Paul Bremer arrived in Baghdad in May of 2003. For fourteen danger-filled months, he worked tirelessly to realize the vision he and President Bush share of a free and democratic New Iraq. MY YEAR IN IRAQ: The Struggle to Build a Future of Hope is a candid and vital account of this world-shaping task and the daunting challenges lying in wait. With his unique insider perspective, Bremer takes us from the ancient lanes in the holy city of Najaf to the fires of a looted and lawless Baghdad; from the White House Situation Room to the Pentagon E-Ring; from making the case for more U.S. troops to helping Iraq’s new leaders write a liberal constitution to unify a traumatized and divided Iraqi people.
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Born and raised in Oklahoma, of Lebanese descent, Shadid, a fluent Arabic speaker, has spent the last three years dividing his time between Washington, D.C., and Baghdad. The only journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize for his extraordinary coverage of Iraq, Shadid is also the only writer to describe the human story of ordinary Iraqis weathering the unexpected impact of America’s invasion and occupation. Through the moving stories of individual Iraqis, Shadid shows how Saddam’s downfall paved the way not just for hopes of democracy but also for the importation of jihad and the rise of a bloody insurgency. “A superb reporter’s book,” wrote Seymour Hersh; Night Draws Near is, according to Mark Danner, “essential.”
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For the first time anywhere, the first-person account of the planning and execution of the Bin Laden raid from a Navy Seal who confronted the terrorist mastermind and witnessed his final moment From the streets of Iraq to the rescue of Captain Richard Phillips in the Indian Ocean, and from the mountaintops of Afghanistan to the third floor of Osama Bin Laden’s compound, operator Mark Owen of the U.S. Naval Special Warfare Development Group–commonly known as SEAL Team Six–has been a part of some of the most memorable special operations in history, as well as countless missions that never made headlines. No Easy Day puts readers alongside Owen and the other handpicked members of the twenty-four-man team as they train for the biggest mission of their lives. The blow-by-blow narrative of the assault, beginning with the helicopter crash that could have ended Owen’s life straight through to the radio call confirming Bin Laden’s death, is an essential piece of modern history. In No Easy Day, Owen also takes readers onto the field of battle in America’s ongoing War on Terror and details the selection and training process for one of the most elite units in the military. Owen’s story draws on his youth in Alaska and describes the SEALs’ quest to challenge themselves at the highest levels of physical and mental endurance. With boots-on-the-ground detail, Owen describes numerous previously unreported missions that illustrate the life and work of a SEAL and the evolution of the team after the events of September 11. In telling the true story of the SEALs whose talents, skills, experiences, and exceptional sacrifices led to one of the greatest victories in the War on Terror, Mark Owen honors the men who risk everything for our country, and he leaves readers with a deep understanding of the warriors who keep America safe.
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Plan of Attack is the definitive account of how and why President George W. Bush, his war council, and allies launched a preemptive attack to topple Saddam Hussein and occupy Iraq. Bob Woodward’s latest landmark account of Washington decision making provides an original, authoritative narrative of behind-the-scenes maneuvering over two years, examining the causes and consequences of the most controversial war since Vietnam. Based on interviews with 75 key participants and more than three and a half hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush, Plan of Attack is part presidential history charting the decisions made during 16 critical months; part military history revealing precise details and the evolution of the Top Secret war planning under the restricted codeword Polo Step; and part a harrowing spy story as the CIA dispatches a covert paramilitary team into northern Iraq six months before the start of the war. This team recruited 87 Iraqi spies designated with the cryptonym DB/ROCKSTARS, one of whom turned over the personnel files of all 6,000 men in Saddam Hussein’s personal security organization. What emerges are astonishingly intimate portraits: President Bush in war cabinet meetings in the White House Situation Room and the Oval Office, and in private conversation; Dick Cheney, the focused and driven vice president; Colin Powell, the conflicted and cautious secretary of state; Donald Rumsfeld, the controlling war technocrat; George Tenet, the activist CIA director; Tommy Franks, the profane and demanding general; Condoleezza Rice, the ever-present referee and national security adviser; Karl Rove, the hands-on political strategist; other key members of the White House staff and congressional leadership; and foreign leaders ranging from British Prime Minister Blair to Russian President Putin.
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Sniper One is the gritty, awe-inspiring true story that takes you right into the heart of the Iraq war from Sunday Times No.1 bestseller Sgt. Dan Mills. ‘One of the best first-hand accounts of combat that I’ve ever read’ Andy McNab We all saw it at once. Half a dozen voices screamed ‘Grenade!’ simultaneously. Then everything went into slow motion. The grenade took an age to travel through its 20 metre arc. A dark, small oval-shaped package of misery the size of a peach … April 2004: Dan Mills and his platoon of snipers fly into southern Iraq, part of an infantry battalion sent to win hearts and minds. They were soon fighting for their lives. Back home we were told they were peacekeeping. But there was no peace to keep. Because within days of arriving in theatre, Mills and his men were caught up in the longest, most sustained fire fight British troops had faced for over fifty years. This awe-inspiring account tells of total war in throat-burning winds and fifty-degree heat, blasted by mortars and surrounded by heavily armed militias. For six months, they fought alone: isolated, besieged and under constant enemy fire.
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Young Jawad, born to a traditional Shi’ite family of corpse washers and shrouders in Baghdad, decides to abandon the family tradition, choosing instead to become a sculptor, to celebrate life rather than tend to death. He enters Baghdad’s Academy of Fine Arts in the late 1980s, in defiance of his father’s wishes and determined to forge his own path. But the circumstances of history dictate otherwise. Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship and the economic sanctions of the 1990s destroy the socioeconomic fabric of society. The 2003 invasion and military occupation unleash sectarian violence. Corpses pile up, and Jawad returns to the inevitable washing and shrouding. Trained as an artist to shape materials to represent life aesthetically, he now must contemplate how death shapes daily life and the bodies of Baghdad’s inhabitants.
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The Gamble offers news-breaking account, revealing behind-the-scenes disagreements between top commanders. We learn that almost every single officer in the chain of command fought the surge. Many of Petraeus’s closest advisers went to Iraq extremely pessimistic, doubting that the surge would have any effect, and his own boss was so skeptical that he dispatched an admiral to Baghdad in the summer of 2007 to come up with a strategy to replace Petraeus’s. That same boss later flew to Iraq to try to talk Petraeus out of his planned congressional testimony. The Gamble examines the congressional hearings through the eyes of Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker, and their views of the questions posed by the 2008 presidential candidates.
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On March 15, 2006, members from both parties in Congress supported the creation of the bipartisan Iraq Study Group to review the situation on the ground and propose strategies for the way forward. For more than eight months, the Study Group met with military officers, regional experts, academics, journalists, and high-level government officials from America and abroad. Participants included George W. Bush and members of his cabinet; Bill Clinton; Jalal Talabani; Nouri Kamal al-Maliki; Generals John Abizaid, George Casey, and Anthony Zinni; Colin Powell; Thomas Friedman; George Packer; and many others. This official edition contains the Group’s findings and proposals for improving security, strengthening the new government, rebuilding the economy and infrastructure, and maintaining stability in the region. It is a highly anticipated and essential step forward for Iraq, America, and the world.
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Crawford and his unit spent months upon months patrolling the streets of Baghdad, occupying a hostile city. During the breaks between patrols, Crawford began recording what he and his fellow soldiers witnessed and experienced. Those stories became The Last True Story I’ll Ever Tell—a haunting and powerful, compellingly honest book that imparts the on-the-ground reality of waging the war in Iraq, and marks as the introduction of a mighty literary voice forged in the most intense of circumstances.
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In the tradition of Michael Herr’s Dispatches and works by such masters of the memoir as Mary Karr and Tobias Wolff, a powerful account of war and homecoming. Brian Castner served three tours of duty in the Middle East, two of them as the commander of an Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit in Iraq. Days and nights he and his team—his brothers—would venture forth in heavily armed convoys from their Forward Operating Base to engage in the nerve-racking yet strangely exhilarating work of either disarming the deadly improvised explosive devices that had been discovered, or picking up the pieces when the alert came too late. They relied on an army of remote-controlled cameras and robots, but if that technology failed, a technician would have to don the eighty-pound Kevlar suit, take the Long Walk up to the bomb, and disarm it by hand. This lethal game of cat and mouse was, and continues to be, the real war within America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But The Long Walk is not just about battle itself. It is also an unflinching portrayal of the toll war exacts on the men and women who are fighting it. When Castner returned home to his wife and family, he began a struggle with a no less insidious foe, an unshakable feeling of fear and confusion and survivor’s guilt that he terms The Crazy. His thrilling, heartbreaking, stunningly honest book immerses the reader in two harrowing and simultaneous realities: the terror and excitement and camaraderie of combat, and the lonely battle against the enemy within—the haunting memories that will not fade, the survival instincts that will not switch off. After enduring what he has endured, can there ever again be such a thing as “normal”? The Long Walk will hook you from the very first sentence, and it will stay with you long after its final gripping page has been turned.
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This comparative study analyses the traditional elite of Iraq and their successors – the Communists, the Ba’thists and Free Officers – in terms of social and economic relationships in each area of the country. The author draws on secret government documents and interviews with key figures, both in power and in prison, to produce an engrossing story of political struggle and change.
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Following a desperate night-long battle, a group of beleaguered soldiers in an isolated base in Kandahar are faced with a lone woman demanding the return of her brother’s body. Is she a spy, a black widow, a lunatic, or is she what she claims to be: a grieving young sister intent on burying her brother according to local rites? Single-minded in her mission, she refuses to move from her spot on the field in full view of every soldier in the stark outpost. Her presence quickly proves dangerous as the camp’s tense, claustrophobic atmosphere comes to a boil when the men begin arguing about what to do next. Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya’s heartbreaking and haunting novel, The Watch, takes a timeless tragedy and hurls it into present-day Afghanistan. Taking its cues from the Antigone myth, Roy-Bhattacharya brilliantly recreates the chaos, intensity, and immediacy of battle, and conveys the inevitable repercussions felt by the soldiers, their families, and by one sister. The result is a gripping tour through the reality of this very contemporary conflict, and our most powerful expression to date of the nature and futility of war.
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In his breakout bestseller, The Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger created “a wild ride that brilliantly captures the awesome power of the raging sea and the often futile attempts of humans to withstand it” (Los Angeles Times Book Review). Now, Junger turns his brilliant and empathetic eye to the reality of combat–the fear, the honor, and the trust among men in an extreme situation whose survival depends on their absolute commitment to one another. His on-the-ground account follows a single platoon through a 15-month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. Through the experiences of these young men at war, he shows what it means to fight, to serve, and to face down mortal danger on a daily basis.
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The platoon included four pairs of best friends. Each of the four would lose a best friend forever.Five months after being deployed to Iraq, Lima Company’s 1st Platoon found itself in Fallujah, embroiled in some of the most intense house-to-house, hand-to-hand combat since World War II. Civilians were used as human shields or as bait to lure soldiers into buildings rigged with explosives; suicide bombers approached from every corner hoping to die and take Americans with them; radical insurgents, high on adrenaline, fought to the death. The Marines of the 1st Platoon (part of 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment) were among the first to fight in Fallujah, and they bore the brunt of this epic battle. When it was over, the platoon had suffered thirty-five casualties, including four dead.This is their story.Award-winning author and historian Patrick O’Donnell stood shoulder-to-shoulder with this modern band of brothers as they marched and fought through the streets of Fallujah, and he stayed with them as the casualties mounted. O’Donnell captures not only the sights, sounds, and smells of the gritty street combat, but also the human drama of young men in a close-knit platoon fighting for their lives-and the lives of their buddies. We Were One chronicles the 1st Platoon’s story, from its formation at Camp Pendleton in California to its near destruction in the smoldering ruins of Fallujah.
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From 1999 to 2009, U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle recorded the most career sniper kills in United States military history. The Pentagon has officially confirmed more than 150 of Kyle’s kills (the previous American record was 109), but it has declined to verify the astonishing total number for this book. Iraqi insurgents feared Kyle so much they named him al-Shaitan (“the devil”) and placed a bounty on his head. Kyle earned legendary status among his fellow SEALs, Marines, and U.S. Army soldiers, whom he protected with deadly accuracy from rooftops and stealth positions. Gripping and unforgettable, Kyle’s masterful account of his extraordinary battlefield experiences ranks as one of the great war memoirs of all time. A native Texan who learned to shoot on childhood hunting trips with his father, Kyle was a champion saddle-bronc rider prior to joining the Navy. After 9/11, he was thrust onto the front lines of the War on Terror, and soon found his calling as a world-class sniper who performed best under fire. He recorded a personal-record 2,100-yard kill shot outside Baghdad; in Fallujah, Kyle braved heavy fire to rescue a group of Marines trapped on a street; in Ramadi, he stared down insurgents with his pistol in close combat. Kyle talks honestly about the pain of war—of twice being shot and experiencing the tragic deaths of two close friends. American Sniper also honors Kyles fellow warriors, who raised hell on and off the battlefield. And in moving first-person accounts throughout, Kyles wife, Taya, speaks openly about the strains of war on their marriage and children, as well as on Chris. Adrenaline-charged and deeply personal, American Sniper is a thrilling eyewitness account of war that only one man could tell.
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One of the great heroes of the Iraq War, Staff Sergeant David Bellavia captures the brutal action and raw intensity of leading his Third Platoon, Alpha Company, into a lethally choreographed kill zone: the booby-trapped, explosive-laden houses of Fallujah’s militant insurgents. Bringing to searing life the terrifying intimacy of hand-to-hand infantry combat, this stunning war memoir features an indelibly drawn cast of characters, not all of whom would make it out of the city alive, as well as chilling accounts of Bellavia’s singular courage: Entering one house alone, he used every weapon at his disposal in the fight of his life against America’s most implacable enemy.
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March 2003: The United States invades Iraq. October 2006: The world finds out why. What was really behind the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq? As George W. Bush steered the nation to war, who spoke the truth and who tried to hide it? “Hubris” takes us behind the scenes at the Bush White House, the CIA, the Pentagon, the State Department, and Congress to answer all the vital questions about how the Bush administration came to invade Iraq. Filled with new revelations, “Hubris” is a gripping narrative of intrigue that connects the dots between George W. Bush’s expletive-laden outbursts at Saddam Hussein, the bitter battles between the CIA and the White House, the fights within the intelligence community over Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, the startling influence of an obscure academic on top government officials, the “real “reason Valerie Plame was outed, and a top reporter’s ties to wily Iraqi exiles trying to start a war. Written by veteran reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn, this is the inside story of how President Bush took the nation to war using faulty and fraudulent intelligence. It is a news-making account of conspiracy, backstabbing, bureaucratic ineptitude, journalistic malfeasance, and, especially, arrogance.
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Fallujah: Iraq’s most dangerous city unexpectedly emerged as the major battleground of the Iraqi insurgency. For twenty months, one American battalion after another tried to quell the violence, culminating in a bloody, full-scale assault. Victory came at a terrible price: 151 Americans and thousands of Iraqis were left dead. The epic battle for Fallujah revealed the startling connections between policy and combat that are a part of the new reality of war. The Marines had planned to slip into Fallujah “as soft as fog.” But after four American contractors were brutally murdered, President Bush ordered an attack on the city–against the advice of the Marines. The assault sparked a political firestorm, and the Marines were forced to withdraw amid controversy and confusion–only to be ordered a second time to take a city that had become an inferno of hate and the lair of the archterrorist al-Zarqawi. Based on months spent with the battalions in Fallujah and hundreds of interviews at every level–senior policymakers, negotiators, generals, and soldiers and Marines on the front lines– No True Glory is a testament to the bravery of the American soldier and a cautionary tale about the complex–and often costly–interconnected roles of policy, politics, and battle in the twenty-first century.
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If the Marines are “the few, the proud,” Recon Marines are the fewest and the proudest. Nathaniel Fick’s career begins with a hellish summer at Quantico, after his junior year at Dartmouth. He leads a platoon in Afghanistan just after 9/11 and advances to the pinnacle—Recon— two years later, on the eve of war with Iraq. His vast skill set puts him in front of the front lines, leading twenty-two Marines into the deadliest conflict since Vietnam. He vows to bring all his men home safely, and to do so he’ll need more than his top-flight education. Fick unveils the process that makes Marine officers such legendary leaders and shares his hard-won insights into the differences between military ideals and military practice, which can mock those ideals. In this deeply thoughtful account of what it’s like to fight on today’s front lines, Fick reveals the crushing pressure on young leaders in combat. Split-second decisions might have national consequences or horrible immediate repercussions, but hesitation isn’t an option. One Bullet Away never shrinks from blunt truths, but ultimately it is an inspiring account of mastering the art of war.
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Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Phil Klay’s Redeployment takes readers to the frontlines of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, asking us to understand what happened there, and what happened to the soldiers who returned. Interwoven with themes of brutality and faith, guilt and fear, helplessness and survival, the characters in these stories struggle to make meaning out of chaos. In “Redeployment”, a soldier who has had to shoot dogs because they were eating human corpses must learn what it is like to return to domestic life in suburbia, surrounded by people “who have no idea where Fallujah is, where three members of your platoon died.” In “After Action Report”, a Lance Corporal seeks expiation for a killing he didn’t commit, in order that his best friend will be unburdened. A Morturary Affairs Marine tells about his experiences collecting remains – of U.S. and Iraqi soldiers both. A chaplain sees his understanding of Christianity, and his ability to provide solace through religion, tested by the actions of a ferocious Colonel. And in the darkly comic “Money as a Weapons System”, a young Foreign Service Officer is given the absurd task of helping Iraqis improve their lives by teaching them to play baseball. These stories reveal the intricate combination of monotony, bureaucracy, comradeship and violence that make up a soldier’s daily life at war, and the isolation, remorse, and despair that can accompany a soldier’s homecoming.
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Named one of the Best Books of 2005 by The New York Times, The Washington Post Book World, The Boston Globe, The Chicago Tribune, The San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, The New York Times Book Review, USA Today, Time, and New York magazine. The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq recounts how the United States set about changing the history of the Middle East and became ensnared in a guerrilla war in Iraq. It brings to life the people and ideas that created the Bush administration’s war policy and led America to the Assassins’ Gate—the main point of entry into the American zone in Baghdad. The Assassins’ Gate also describes the place of the war in American life: the ideological battles in Washington that led to chaos in Iraq, the ordeal of a fallen soldier ’s family, and the political culture of a country too bitterly polarized to realize such a vast and morally complex undertaking. George Packer’s best-selling first-person narrative combines the scope of an epic history with the depth and intimacy of a novel, creating a masterful account of America’s most controversial foreign venture since Vietnam.
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Fobbit \’fä-bit\, noun. Definition: A U.S. soldier stationed at a Forward Operating Base who avoids combat by remaining at the base, esp. during Operation Iraqi Freedom (2003-2011). Pejorative. In the satirical tradition of Catch-22 and M*A*S*H, Fobbit takes us into the chaotic world of Baghdad’s Forward Operating Base Triumph. The Forward Operating base, or FOB, is like the back-office of the battlefield – where people eat and sleep, and where a lot of soldiers have what looks suspiciously like an office job. Male and female soldiers are trying to find an empty Porta Potty in which to get acquainted, grunts are playing Xbox and watching NASCAR between missions, and a lot of the senior staff are more concerned about getting to the chow hall in time for the Friday night all-you-can-eat seafood special than worrying about little things like military strategy. Darkly humorous and based on the author’s own experiences in Iraq, Fobbit is a fantastic debut that shows us a behind-the-scenes portrait of the real Iraq war.
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Another nameless town, another target for First Recon. It’s only five in the afternoon, but a sandtorm has plunged everything into a hellish twilight of murky, red dust. On rooftops, in alleyways lurk militiamen with machine guns, AK rifles and the odd rocket-propelled grenade. Artillery bombardment has shattered the town’s sewers and rubble is piled up in lagoons of human excrement. It stinks. Welcome to Iraq… Within hours of 9/11, America’s war on terrorism fell to those like the 23 Marines of the First Recon Battalion, the first generation dispatched into open-ed combat since Vietnam. They were a new breed of American warrior unrecognizable to their forebears-soldiers raised on hip hop, Internet porn, Marilyn Manson, video games and The Real World, a band of born-again Christians, dopers, Buddhists, and New Agers who gleaned their precepts from kung fu movies and Oprah Winfrey. Cocky, brave, headstrong, wary, and mostly unprepared for the physical, emotional, and moral horrors ahead, the “First Suicide Battalion” would spearhead the blitzkrieg on Iraq, and fight against the hardest resistance Saddam had to offer. Generation Kill is the funny, frightening, and profane firsthand account of these remarkable men, of the personal toll of victory, and of the randomness, brutality, and camaraderie of a new American war.
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An unprecedented account of life in Baghdad’s Green Zone, a walled-off enclave of towering plants, posh villas, and sparkling swimming pools that was the headquarters for the American occupation of Iraq. The Washington Post’s former Baghdad bureau chief Rajiv Chandrasekaran takes us with him into the Zone: into a bubble, cut off from wartime realities, where the task of reconstructing a devastated nation competed with the distractions of a Little America—a half-dozen bars stocked with cold beer, a disco where women showed up in hot pants, a movie theater that screened shoot-’em-up films, an all-you-could-eat buffet piled high with pork, a shopping mall that sold pornographic movies, a parking lot filled with shiny new SUVs, and a snappy dry-cleaning service—much of it run by Halliburton. Most Iraqis were barred from entering the Emerald City for fear they would blow it up. Drawing on hundreds of interviews and internal documents, Chandrasekaran tells the story of the people and ideas that inhabited the Green Zone during the occupation, from the imperial viceroy L. Paul Bremer III to the fleet of twentysomethings hired to implement the idea that Americans could build a Jeffersonian democracy in an embattled Middle Eastern country. In the vacuum of postwar planning, Bremer ignores what Iraqis tell him they want or need and instead pursues irrelevant neoconservative solutions—a flat tax, a sell-off of Iraqi government assets, and an end to food rationing. His underlings spend their days drawing up pie-in-the-sky policies, among them a new traffic code and a law protecting microchip designs, instead of rebuilding looted buildings and restoring electricity production. His almost comic initiatives anger the locals and help fuel the insurgency.
Lists It Appears On:
An underemployed, skateboarding party animal, Colby Buzzell traded a dead-end future for the army–and ended up as a machine gunner in Iraq. To make sense of the absurd and frightening events surrounding him, he started writing a blog about the war–and how it differed from the government’s official version. But as his blog’s popularity grew, Buzzell became the embedded reporter the Army couldn’t control–despite its often hilarious efforts to do so. The result is an extraordinary narrative, rich with unforgettable scenes: the Iraqi woman crying uncontrollably during a raid on her home; the soldier too afraid to fight; the troops chain-smoking in a guard tower and counting tracer rounds; the first, fierce firefight against the “men in black.” Drawing comparisons to everything from Charles Bukowski to Catch-22, My War depicts a generation caught in a complicated and dangerous world–and marks the debut of a raw, remarkable new voice.
Lists It Appears On:
From the front lines of the battle against Islamic fundamentalism, a searing, unforgettable book that captures the human essence of the greatest conflict of our time. Through the eyes of Dexter Filkins, the prizewinning New York Times correspondent whose work was hailed by David Halberstam as “reporting of the highest quality imaginable,” we witness the remarkable chain of events that began with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, continued with the attacks of 9/11, and moved on to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Filkins’s narrative moves across a vast and various landscape of amazing characters and astonishing scenes: deserts, mountains, and streets of carnage; a public amputation performed by Taliban; children frolicking in minefields; skies streaked white by the contrails of B-52s; a night’s sleep in the rubble of Ground Zero. We embark on a foot patrol through the shadowy streets of Ramadi, venture into a torture chamber run by Saddam Hussein. We go into the homes of suicide bombers and into street-to-street fighting with a battalion of marines. We meet Iraqi insurgents, an American captain who loses a quarter of his men in eight days, and a young soldier from Georgia on a rooftop at midnight reminiscing about his girlfriend back home. A car bomb explodes, bullets fly, and a mother cradles her blinded son. Like no other book, The Forever War allows us a visceral understanding of today’s battlefields and of the experiences of the people on the ground, warriors and innocents alike. It is a brilliant, fearless work, not just about America’s wars after 9/11, but ultimately about the nature of war itself.
Lists It Appears On:
Billy Lynn’s Long Half-Time Walk is a razor-sharp satire set in Texas during America’s war in Iraq. It explores the gaping national disconnect between the war at home and the war abroad. Ben Fountain’s remarkable debut novel follows the surviving members of the heroic Bravo Squad through one exhausting stop in their media-intensive “Victory Tour” at Texas Stadium, football mecca of the Dallas Cowboys, their fans, promoters, and cheerleaders.
Lists It Appears On:
It was the last-chance moment of the war. In January 2007, President George W. Bush announced a new strategy for Iraq. He called it the surge. “Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not. Well, here are the differences,” he told a skeptical nation. Among those listening were the young, optimistic army infantry soldiers of the 2-16, the battalion nicknamed the Rangers. About to head to a vicious area of Baghdad, they decided the difference would be them. Fifteen months later, the soldiers returned home forever changed. Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Finkel was with them in Bagdad, and almost every grueling step of the way. What was the true story of the surge? And was it really a success? Those are the questions he grapples with in his remarkable report from the front lines. Combining the action of Mark Bowden’s Black Hawk Down with the literary brio of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, The Good Soldiers is an unforgettable work of reportage. And in telling the story of these good soldiers, the heroes and the ruined, David Finkel has also produced an eternal tale—not just of the Iraq War, but of all wars, for all time.
Lists It Appears On:
With profound emotional insight, especially into the effects of a hidden war on mothers and families at home, The Yellow Birds is a groundbreaking novel about the costs of war that is destined to become a classic. “The war tried to kill us in the spring,” begins this breathtaking account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. In the endless days that follow, the two young soldiers do everything to protect each other from the forces that press in on every side: the insurgents, physical fatigue, and the mental stress that comes from constant danger. Bound together since basic training when their tough-as-nails Sergeant ordered Bartle to watch over Murphy, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for. As reality begins to blur into a hazy nightmare, Murphy becomes increasingly unmoored from the world around him and Bartle takes impossible actions. With profound emotional insight, especially into the effects of a hidden war on mothers and families at home, The Yellow Birds a groundbreaking novel about the costs of war that is destined to become a classic.
Lists It Appears On:
This is the Story of The American Military Adventure in Iraq. The Heart of the story Fiasco has to tell, which has never been told before, is that of a Military occupation whose leaders failed to see a blooming insurgency for what it was and as a result lead their soldiers in such a way that the insurgency became inevitable.
# | Books | Authors | Lists |
40 | 500 Days: Decisions and Deceptions in the Shadow of 9/11 | Kurt Eichenwald | Goodreads 1 |
41 | 9/11 Ten Years After: Perspectives and Problems | Rachel E. Utley | ISE |
42 | A Lifetime at War | Foreword Reviews | |
43 | A Marine at the Door | Eddie Vega | Goodreads 1 |
44 | A Nightmare’s Prayer: A Marine Harrier Pilot’s War in Afghanistan | Michael Franzak | Goodreads 1 |
45 | A Sky So Close | Signature Reads | |
46 | A World Transformed | NY Times | |
47 | Afghanistan: A Russian Soldier’s Story | Vladislav Tamarov | Goodreads 1 |
48 | After Action: The True Story of a Cobra Pilot’s Journey | Dan Sheehan | Goodreads 1 |
49 | After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam | Lesley Hazleton | Goodreads 1 |
50 | Aftermath | Nir Rosen | Five Books |
51 | Ahmed Saadawi, Frankenstein in Baghdad (trans. Jonathan Wright) | Lit Hub | |
52 | An Angel from Hell: Real Life on the Front Lines | Ryan A. Conklin | Goodreads 1 |
53 | Apache. Ed Macy | Ed Macy | Goodreads 1 |
54 | Armament, Defense and Military Forces | NY Times | |
55 | Arming Iraq: How the U.S. and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s War Machine | Chomsky List | |
56 | Babylon by Bus: Or true story of two friends who gave up valuable franchise selling T-shirts to find meaning & adventure in Iraq where they became employed by the Occupation… | Ray LeMoine | Goodreads 2 |
57 | Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq | Riverbend | The Guardian |
58 | Baghdad Fixer | Ilene Prusher | Goodreads 1 |
59 | Baghdad Without a Map: And Other Misadventures in Arabia | NY Times | |
60 | Band of Sisters: American Women at War in Iraq | Kirsten Holmstedt | Goodreads 1 |
61 | Basrayatha: Portrait of a City | Signature Reads | |
62 | Beowulf in Iraq – Lessons from an ancient warrior for the modern age | T.M. Johnson | Goodreads 1 |
63 | Beyond Hypocrisy: Decoding the News in an Age of Propaganda | Chomsky List | |
64 | Black Flags: The Rise of ISIS | Joby Warrick | Goodreads 2 |
65 | Black Hearts: One Platoon’s Descent Into Madness in Iraq’s Triangle of Death | Jim Frederick | Goodreads 2 |
66 | Blair’s Just War: Iraq and the Illusion of Morality | Peter Lee | ISE |
67 | Boots on the Ground | Wikipedia | |
68 | Bullets and Train | Adeerus Ghayan | Goodreads 1 |
69 | Bush at War | Bob Woodward | Goodreads 1 |
70 | Chasing Ghosts: Failures and Facades in Iraq: A Soldier’s Perspective | Paul Rieckhoff | Goodreads 2 |
71 | Closing His Eyes | Signature Reads | |
72 | Combat Ready | David Wolstenholm | Goodreads 1 |
73 | Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising, and the Arab World | NY Times | |
74 | Debriefing the President: The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein | John Nixon | Goodreads 2 |
75 | Decision Points | George W. Bush | Goodreads 2 |
76 | Desert Shield to Desert Storm: The Second Gulf War | Chomsky List | |
77 | Detained Without Cause: Muslims’ Stories of Detention and Deportation in America after 9/11 | Irum Shiekh | ISE |
78 | Dust to Dust: A Memoir | Part Time Commander | |
79 | Eastern Cauldron: Islam, Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq in a Marxist Mirror | Chomsky List | |
80 | Echo in Ramadi: The Firsthand Story of US Marines in Iraq’s Deadliest City | Scott A. Huesing | Goodreads 1 |
81 | Eleven Days | Brazos Bookstore | |
82 | Endgame: Solving the Iraq Problem — Once and for All | NY Times | |
83 | Enemies of the American Way: Identity and Presidential Foreign Policymaking | David Bell Mislan | ISE |
84 | Fearless: The Heroic Story of One Navy SEAL’s Sacrifice in the Hunt for Osama Bin Laden and the Unwavering Devotion of the Woman Who Loved Him | Eric Blehm | Goodreads 1 |
85 | First In: An Insider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan | Gary Schroen | Goodreads 1 |
86 | Flashes of War | Katey Schultz | Goodreads 1 |
87 | Flexible Wings | Foreword Reviews | |
88 | Flowers of Flame: Unheard Voices of Iraq | Lit Hub | |
89 | Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 | Steve Coll | Goodreads 1 |
90 | Green on Blue: A Novel | Brazos Bookstore | |
91 | Guantánamo: America’s War on Human Rights | Wikipedia | |
92 | Guantanamo: What the World Should Know | Michael Ratner | Goodreads 1 |
93 | Haifa Zangana, City of Widows: An Iraqi Woman’s Account of War and Resistance | Lit Hub | |
94 | Hasan Blasim, The Corpse Exhibition | Lit Hub | |
95 | Heart of a Shepherd | Rosanne Parry | Goodreads 2 |
96 | Heavy Metal: a Tank Company’s Battle to Baghdad | Wikipedia | |
97 | Here, Bullet | Brian Turner | Goodreads 2 |
98 | Highway to Hell: Dispatches from a Mercenary in Iraq | John Geddes | Goodreads 1 |
99 | HOODWINKED: How the Bush Administration Sold Us a War | Chomsky List | |
100 | Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan | Doug Stanton | Goodreads 1 |
101 | How America Gets Away with Murder: Illegal Wars, Collateral Damage and Crimes Against Humanity | Chomsky List | |
102 | How to Break a Terrorist | Wikipedia | |
103 | I’m Not the Only One | Wikipedia | |
104 | Illuminating the Dark Arts of War: Terrorism, Sabotage, and Subversion in Homeland Security and the New Conflict | David Tucker | ISE |
105 | In the Eye of the Storm: The Life of Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf | NY Times | |
106 | Into the Fire: A Firsthand Account of the Most Extraordinary Battle in the Afghan War | Dakota Meyer | Goodreads 1 |
107 | Into the Killing Zone: Dispatches from the Frontline in Afghanistan | Sean Rayment | Goodreads 1 |
108 | Iraq and the Second Gulf War: State Building and Regime Security | Chomsky List | |
109 | Iraq at a Distance | Wikipedia | |
110 | Iraq in the Eye of the Storm | Chomsky List | |
111 | Iraq Under Siege: The Deadly Impact of Sanctions and War | Chomsky List | |
112 | Iraq War 2003: What Really Happened Behind The Political Scenes | Charles Edmund Coyote | Goodreads 1 |
113 | Iraq,Inc.: A Profitable Occupation | Chomsky List | |
114 | Iraq: Military Victory, Moral Defeat | Chomsky List | |
115 | It Doesn’t Take a Hero | NY Times | |
116 | Jæger – i krig med eliten | Wikipedia | |
117 | Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia | Ahmed Rashid | Goodreads 1 |
118 | Kaboom: Embracing the Suck in a Savage Little War | Matt Gallagher | Goodreads 1 |
119 | Khost | Vincent Hobbes | Goodreads 1 |
120 | Knife Sharpener | Signature Reads | |
121 | Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History | NY Times | |
122 | Last Round: The Red Caps, the Paras and the Battle of Majar | Mark Nicol | Goodreads 1 |
123 | Level Zero Heroes: The Story of U.S. Marine Special Operations in Bala Murghab, Afghanistan | Michael Golembesky | Goodreads 1 |
124 | Lions of Kandahar: How the Special Forces and Their Afghan Allies Saved Southern Afghanistan | Rusty Bradley | Goodreads 1 |
125 | Live From Baghdad: Gathering News at Ground Zero | NY Times | |
126 | Live From the Battlefield. From Vietnam to Baghdad: 35 Years in the World’s War Zones | NY Times | |
127 | Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 | Marcus Luttrell | Goodreads 1 |
128 | Love Me When I’m Gone: The true story of life, love and loss for a Green Beret in post-9/11 war | Robert Patrick Lewis | Goodreads 1 |
129 | Love My Rifle More Than You: Young and Female in the U.S. Army | Kayla Williams | Goodreads 1 |
130 | Making Friends Among the Taliban: A Peacemaker’s Journey in Afghanistan | Jonathan P. Larson | Goodreads 1 |
131 | Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden–from 9/11 to Abbottabad | Peter L. Bergen | Goodreads 1 |
132 | Mass Casualties: A Young Medic’s True Story of Death, Deception, and Dishonor in Iraq | Michael Anthony | Goodreads 1 |
133 | Mass Deception: Moral Panic and the U.S. War on Iraq | Scott A. Bonn | Goodreads 1 |
134 | Mayada, Daughter of Iraq | Signature Reads | |
135 | Media and Terrorism: Global Perspectives, edited | Des Freedman and Daya Kishan Thussa | ISE |
136 | Mr Galloway Goes to Washington | Wikipedia | |
137 | My American Journey | NY Times | |
138 | My Men Are My Heroes: The Brad Kasal Story | Brad Kasal | Goodreads 1 |
139 | No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War through Afghan Eyes | Anand Gopal | Goodreads 1 |
140 | Nobody Told Us We Are Defeated: Stories from the New Iraq | Rory McCarthy | The Guardian |
141 | Not A Good Day To Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda | Sean Naylor | Goodreads 1 |
142 | Not in the Wind, Earthquake, or Fire | Philip Sharp | Goodreads 1 |
143 | Obama and the Middle East | Fawaz Gerges | ISE |
144 | Obama’s Wars | Wikipedia | |
145 | Occupational Hazards | Wikipedia | |
146 | One Hundred and One Nights | Benjamin Bucholz – | Publishers Weekly |
147 | Other Lands Have Dreams: Letters From Pekin Prison | Kathy Kelly | Goodreads 1 |
148 | Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein | NY Times | |
149 | Outlaw Platoon: Heroes, Renegades, Infidels, and the Brotherhood of War in Afghanistan | Sean Parnell | Goodreads 1 |
150 | Paradise General: Riding the Surge at a Combat Hospital in Iraq | Dave Hnida | Goodreads 2 |
151 | Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War | Wikipedia | |
152 | Plenty of Time When We Get Home: Love and Recovery in the Aftermath of War | Part Time Commander | |
153 | Purple Heart | Patricia McCormick | Goodreads 2 |
154 | Republic of Fear: The Inside Story of Saddam’s Iraq | NY Times | |
155 | Riverbend | Lit Hub | |
156 | Rough Music: Blair, Bombs, Baghdad, London, Terror | Wikipedia | |
157 | Saber’s Edge: A Combat Medic in Ramadi, Iraq | Thomas A. Middleton | Goodreads 1 |
158 | Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf | NY Times | |
159 | Saddam Hussein: The Politics of Revenge | Chomsky List | |
160 | Saddam Hussein’s Gulf Wars: Ambivalent Stakes in the Middle East | Chomsky List | |
161 | Saddam: King of Terror | NY Times | |
162 | Saddam’s Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda | NY Times | |
163 | Sand Queen | Helen Benedict – | Publishers Weekly |
164 | Service: A Navy SEAL at War | Marcus Luttrell | Goodreads 1 |
165 | Shadow of the Sword | Wikipedia | |
166 | Shooter: The Autobiography of the Top-Ranked Marine Sniper | Jack Coughlin | Goodreads 2 |
167 | Sikander | M. Salahuddin Khan | Goodreads 1 |
168 | Sinan Antoon, I’jaam, an Iraqi Rhapsody (trans. Rebecca Johnson and Sinan Antoon) | Lit Hub | |
169 | Soldiers Once | Foreword Reviews | |
170 | Somebody, Please Tell Me Who I Am | Harry Mazer | Goodreads 2 |
171 | Sparta | Roxana Robinson – | Publishers Weekly |
172 | Strategic Intelligence and Statecraft: Selected Essays, Adda B Bozeman | The Guardian | |
173 | Sunrise Over Fallujah | Walter Dean Myers | Goodreads 2 |
174 | Supremacy and Oil: Iraq, Turkey and the Anglo-American World Order, 1918-30 | Chomsky List | |
175 | Task Force Helmand: A Soldier’s Story Of Life, Death And Combat On The Afghan Front Line | Doug Beattie | Goodreads 1 |
176 | Thank You For Your Service | Part Time Commander | |
177 | The Accidental Guerrilla: Fighting Small Wars in the Midst of a Big One | David Kilcullen | Goodreads 2 |
178 | The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics | Daniel James Brown | Goodreads 1 |
179 | The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil | Publishers Weekly | |
180 | The Burden of the Desert | Justin Huggler | Goodreads 1 |
181 | The Chilcot report | The Guardian | |
182 | The Commanders | NY Times | |
183 | The Corpse Exhibition | Signature Reads | |
184 | The Crossroad | Mark Donaldson | Goodreads 1 |
185 | The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals | Jane Mayer | Goodreads 2 |
186 | The Field of Fight: How We Can Win the Global War Against Radical Islam and Its Allies | Michael T. Flynn | Goodreads 1 |
187 | The Finish: The Killing of Osama Bin Laden | Mark Bowden | Goodreads 1 |
188 | The Generals’ War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf | NY Times | |
189 | The Gift of Valor: A War Story | Michael M. Phillips | Goodreads 1 |
190 | The Girls Come Marching Home: Stories of Women Warriors Returning from the War in Iraq | Kirsten Holmstedt | Goodreads 1 |
191 | The Greatest Threat: Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and the Crisis of Global Security | NY Times | |
192 | The Gulf Conflict, 1990-1991: Diplomacy and War in the New World Order | Chomsky List | |
193 | The Heart and the Fist: The Education of a Humanitarian, the Making of a Navy SEAL | Eric Greitens | Goodreads 2 |
194 | The Hunger Games | Suzanne Collins – | Publishers Weekly |
195 | The Iraq War | Signature Reads | |
196 | The Iraq War – A Military History | Williamson Murray | Goodreads 2 |
197 | The Iraq War: A Philosophical Analysis | Bassam Romaya | ISE |
198 | The Kite Runner | Khaled Hosseini – | Publishers Weekly |
199 | The Long Road Home: A Story of War and Family | Part Time Commander | |
200 | The Longest War: The Iran-Iraq Military Conflict | Chomsky List | |
201 | The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 | Lawrence Wright | Goodreads 1 |
202 | The Lucky One | Nicholas Sparks | Goodreads 2 |
203 | The Madman of Freedom Square | Hassan Blasim | Goodreads 1 |
204 | The March Up: Taking Baghdad with the 1st Marine Division | Francis J. West Jr. | Goodreads 1 |
205 | The Media at War: Communication and Conflict in the Twentieth Century | Susan Carruthers | ISE |
206 | The Mirror Test | Signature Reads | |
207 | The Mission, the Men, and Me: Lessons from a Former Delta Force Commander | Pete Blaber | Goodreads 1 |
208 | The New Iraq: Rebuilding The Country For Its People, The Middle East, And The World | Joseph Braude | Goodreads 1 |
209 | The Occupation of Iraq | Ali A Allawi | Five Books |
210 | The Only Thing Worth Dying For: How Eleven Green Berets Forged a New Afghanistan | Eric Blehm | Goodreads 1 |
211 | The Outlaw State: Saddam Hussein’s Quest for Power and the Gulf Crisis | NY Times | |
212 | The Outpost: An Untold Story of American Valor | Jake Tapper | Goodreads 1 |
213 | The Persian Gulf TV War | Chomsky List | |
214 | The Prisoner in His Palace: Saddam Hussein, His American Guards, and What History Leaves Unsaid | Will Bardenwerper | Goodreads 2 |
215 | The Ragged Edge: A US Marine’s Account of Leading the Iraqi Army Fifth Battalion | Michael Zacchea | Goodreads 1 |
216 | The Reckoning: Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein | NY Times | |
217 | The Red Circle: My Life in the Navy SEAL Sniper Corps and How I Trained America’s Deadliest Marksmen | Brandon Webb | Goodreads 1 |
218 | The Saddam Hussein Reader: Selections from Leading Writers on Iraq | Chomsky List | |
219 | The Strange Death of David Kelly | Wikipedia | |
220 | The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq | NY Times | |
221 | The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole who Infiltrated the CIA | Joby Warrick | Goodreads 1 |
222 | The War I Always Wanted: The Illusion of Glory and the Reality of War: A Screaming Eagle in Afghanistan and Iraq | Brandon Friedman | Goodreads 1 |
223 | The Wax Bullet War: Chronicles of a Soldier & Artist | Sean Davis | Goodreads 1 |
224 | The Way of the World | Wikipedia | |
225 | The World Through the Eyes of Angels | Signature Reads | |
226 | The Wounded Warrior Handbook | Foreword Reviews | |
227 | The Wrong Enemy: America in Afghanistan, 2001-2014 | Carlotta Gall | Goodreads 1 |
228 | Then I Came Home | Foreword Reviews | |
229 | Thieves of Baghdad | Wikipedia | |
230 | Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace … One School at a Time | Greg Mortenson | Goodreads 1 |
231 | Thunder Run: The Armored Strike to Capture Baghdad | David Zucchino | Goodreads 2 |
232 | Triumph Of The Image: The Media’s War In The Persian Gulf, A Global Perspective | Chomsky List | |
233 | Unspoken Abandonment: Sometimes the hardest part of going to war is coming home | Bryan A. Wood | Goodreads 1 |
234 | War and the Soul | Foreword Reviews | |
235 | War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want You To Know | Chomsky List | |
236 | War with Iraq: Costs, Consequences, and Alternatives | Chomsky List | |
237 | Weapons of Mass Destruction | Margaret Vandenburg | Goodreads 1 |
238 | What Happened | Wikipedia | |
239 | Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman | Jon Krakauer | Goodreads 1 |
240 | Why Are We the Good Guys? | Wikipedia | |
241 | Winning Paktika: Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan | Robert S. Anders | Goodreads 1 |
242 | Word for Word / War Memoirs: ‘In a Few Days, the Mood Shifted: Why Hadn’t We Won Yet?’ | NY Times | |
243 | Wynne’s War | Aaron Gwyn | Goodreads 1 |
244 | Zubaida’s Window | Signature Reads |
Source | Article |
Brazos Bookstore | The Literature of the Iraq War | BRAZOS BOOKSTORE |
Chomsky List | Chomsky’s Recommended Iraq Books List | ChomskyList.com |
Five Books | The Best Books on The Iraq War | Five Books |
Foreword Reviews | 7 Books On Veterans Who Bring War Home — Articles — Foreword … |
Goodreads 1 | Best Iraq and Afghanistan War Books (202 books) – Goodreads |
Goodreads 2 | Popular Iraq War Books – Goodreads |
ISE | Reading List: 10 must-read books on the War on Terror, Iraq and the … |
Lit Hub | The Best Contemporary Iraqi Writing About War | Literary Hub |
NY Times | The New York Times > Books > Iraq: A Reading List |
Part Time Commander | The Top 20 Iraq War Books – Citizen Soldier Resource Center |
Paste Magazine | Generation Kill: Five Great Books Written About Americans in Iraq and … |
Publishers Weekly | The 10 Best Contemporary War Novels – Publishers Weekly |
Signature Reads | Reading the Republic: Best Books to Understand Iraq – Signature Reads |
The Guardian | Top 10 books about the Iraq war | Books | The Guardian |
Wikipedia | Category:Iraq War books – Wikipedia |
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