Description
Book SynopsisIn its earliest days, the American-led war in Afghanistan appeared to be a triumph, a 'good war' in comparison to the debacle in Iraq. This book explores the intentions and hubris that caused the West's strategy in Afghanistan to flounder, refuting the long-held notion that the war could have been won with more troops and cash.
Trade ReviewAn excellent account. The outline of Fairweather’s story is sadly familiar, but he writes with exceptional lucidity and punch… No British officer should be allowed to board a plane for our next war until he has read Fairweather’s account of how we messed up the last one. -- Max Hastings * Sunday Times *
Jack Fairweather’s sweeping account,
The Good War, is one of the first to look at the war as a whole… His richly narrated history roams from the corridors of the White House to the poppy palaces of the country’s opium warlords and the patrol bases of Sangin and Kandahar… As the West looks at the chaos of Iraq and Syria and once more considers how to intervene, the sobering warnings of this riveting book are more relevant than ever. -- Ben Farmer, 4 stars * Daily Telegraph *
Powerful. -- James Meek * London Reviews of Books *
Combines first-hand war reporting with shrewd analysis of the western conduct of the war, [readers] will quickly come to understand what went wrong. * Financial Times *
The Good War is a
tour de force – a riveting, clear-eyed account of the troubled US-led war in Afghanistan. Jack Fairweather has shown himself to be a narrative historian of the first order. For anyone seeking an honest appraisal of what went wrong and why, this book is a must-read. -- Jon Lee Anderson, author of 'The Lion’s Grave: Dispatches from Afghanistan'
