Steve Coll

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004)

This is probably the definitive work on the history of US involvement in the Afghanistan war against the Soviets and the resulting blowback.Coll begins with the Islamabad riot of 1979, in which thousands of Islamic militants laid waste to the US embassy while Zia was riding about on a bicycle dis...

On the Grand Trunk Road (1995)