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Charlie Wilson's War
- The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 20 hrs and 24 mins
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Charlie Wilson's War
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Editorial reviews
Publisher's summary
Charlie Wilson’s War is the untold story of the last battle of the Cold War and how it fueled the rise of militant Islam. Charlie Wilson, a maverick congressman from east Texas, conspired with a rogue CIA operative to launch the biggest, meanest, and most successful covert operation in the Agency’s history.
In the early 1980s, after a Houston socialite turned Wilson’s attention to the ragged Afghan freedom fighters who continued to fight the Soviet invaders despite overwhelming odds, the congressman became passionate about their cause and procured hundreds of millions of dollars to support the mujahideen. The arms were secretly procured and distributed with the help of an out-of-favor CIA operative, Gust Avrokotos, whose working-class Greek-American background made him an anomaly among the Ivy League world of American spies. Avrakotos handpicked a staff of CIA outcasts to run his operation and, with their help, continually stretched the Agency’s rules to the breaking point.
Moving from the back rooms of the Capitol, to secret chambers at Langley, to arms-dealers conventions, to the Khyber Pass, Charlie Wilson’s War is a detailed and brilliantly reported account of the inside workings of the CIA.
Critic reviews
- 2004 Audie Award Winner, Unabridged Nonfiction
"Crile, a 60 Minutes producer, offers an absorbing, thoroughly detailed look at the largest and most successful CIA operation in U.S. history: the arming of the Mujahideen in Afghanistan." (Booklist)
"An engaging, well-written, newsworthy study of practical politics and its sometimes unlikely players." (Kirkus Reviews)
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-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 98
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 100
The Assassins' Gate, so dubbed by American soldiers, is the entrance to the American zone in the city of Baghdad. In 2003, the United States blazed into Iraq to depose dictator Saddam Hussein. But after three years and unknown thousands killed, that country faces an escalating civil war and an uncertain fate. How did it get to this point?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Highly Recommended
- By Drapeau on 02-01-07
By: George Packer
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My American Journey
- An Autobiography
- By: Colin Powell
- Narrated by: Colin Powell
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 651
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 529
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Story5 out of 5 stars 523
Colin Powell is the embodiment of the American dream. He was born in Harlem to immigrant parents from Jamaica. He knew the rough life of the streets. He overcame a barely average start at school. Then he joined the Army. The rest is history - including Vietnam, the Pentagon, Panama, and Desert Storm - but a history that until now has been known only on the surface.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Audio book is abridged!
- By Lydia on 02-11-21
By: Colin Powell
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The Finish
- The Killing of Osama bin Laden
- By: Mark Bowden
- Narrated by: James Lurie
- Length: 8 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 489
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 420
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Story4 out of 5 stars 421
From Mark Bowden, internationally best-selling and acclaimed author of Black Hawk Down and the preeminent chronicler of the actions of our military and special forces writing today, comes an intensely gripping account of the hunt for and elimination of Osama bin Laden. With unprecedented access to key sources and his great gift for storytelling, Bowden takes us inside the rooms where decisions were made and on the ground where the action unfolded.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Listen to No Easy Day...much better
- By JMM on 10-20-12
By: Mark Bowden
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Inside the Kingdom
- Kings, Clerics, Modernists, Terrorists, and the Struggle for Saudi Arabia
- By: Robert Lacey
- Narrated by: Robert Lacey
- Length: 13 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 136
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 100
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 102
Best-selling author Robert Lacey tells us what happened in the Middle East's oil-rich powerhouse---while we weren't looking.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Inside the Kingdom
- By Ibrahim on 03-19-10
By: Robert Lacey
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The Nightingale's Song
- By: Robert Timberg
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 22 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 63
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 47
Robert Timberg weaves together the lives of Annapolis graduates John McCain, James Webb, Oliver North, Robert McFarlane, and John Poindexter to reveal how the Vietnam War continues to haunt America. Casting all five men as metaphors for a legion of well-meaning if ill-starred warriors, Timberg probes the fault line between those who fought the war and those who used money, wit, and connections to avoid battle.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Too Long
- By Tom Carroll on 11-15-18
By: Robert Timberg
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Red Heat
- Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean
- By: Alex von Tunzelmann
- Narrated by: Sarah Coomes
- Length: 19 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 60
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Story4 out of 5 stars 61
The Caribbean crises of the Cold War are revealed as never before in this riveting story of clashing ideologies, the rise of the politics of fear, the machinations of superpowers, and the daring of the brazen mavericks who took them on. The superpowers thought they could use Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic as puppets, but what neither bargained on was that their puppets would come to life.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting, not extraordinary.
- By History on 10-24-11
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A Kingdom of Their Own
- The Family Karzai and the Afghan Disaster
- By: Joshua Partlow
- Narrated by: P. J. Ochlan
- Length: 18 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
The key to understanding the calamitous Afghan war is the complex, ultimately failed relationship between the powerful, duplicitous Karzai family and the United States, brilliantly portrayed here by the former Kabul bureau chief for The Washington Post.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fabulous
- By Charles S. on 10-23-23
By: Joshua Partlow
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Legacy of Ashes
- The History of the CIA
- By: Tim Weiner
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 21 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,588
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,858
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,842
This is the book the CIA does not want you to read. For the last 60 years, the CIA has maintained a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, never disclosing its blunders to the American public. It spun its own truth to the nation while reality lay buried in classified archives. Now, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Tim Weiner offers a stunning indictment of the CIA, a deeply flawed organization that has never deserved America's confidence.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Flawed but Important
- By Michael on 07-18-08
By: Tim Weiner
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The Art of Betrayal
- The Secret History of MI6 - Life and Death in the British Secret Service
- By: Gordon Corera
- Narrated by: Graeme Malcolm
- Length: 17 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 68
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 65
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
From Berlin to the Congo, from Moscow to the back streets of London, these are the stories of the agents on the front lines of British intelligence. And the truth is often more remarkable than fiction.
MI6 has been cloaked in secrecy and shrouded in myth since it was created a hundred years ago. Our understanding of what it is to be a spy has been largely defined by the fictional worlds of Ian Fleming and John le Carré. Gordon Corera provides a unique and unprecedented insight into this secret world and the reality that lies behind the fiction.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Good details but lacks thorough research
- By Unapologetic on 09-06-17
By: Gordon Corera
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War on Peace
- The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence
- By: Ronan Farrow
- Narrated by: Ronan Farrow
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,448
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,139
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,126
American diplomacy is under siege. Offices across the State Department sit empty while abroad, the military-industrial complex has assumed the work once undertaken by peacemakers. We're becoming a nation that shoots first and asks questions later. In an astonishing account ranging from Washington, DC, to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and North Korea in the years since 9/11, acclaimed journalist and former diplomat Ronan Farrow illuminates one of the most consequential and poorly understood changes in American history.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Well Timed and Authoritative:
- By JC on 04-24-18
By: Ronan Farrow
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Debriefing the President
- The Interrogation of Saddam Hussein
- By: John Nixon
- Narrated by: John Nixon
- Length: 5 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 289
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 256
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 257
In December 2003, after one of the largest, most aggressive manhunts in history, US military forces captured Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near his hometown of Tikrit. Beset by body-double rumors and false alarms during a nine-month search, the Bush administration needed positive identification of the prisoner before it could make the announcement that would rocket around the world. At the time John Nixon was a senior CIA leadership analyst who had spent years studying the Iraqi dictator.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not What You Think It Is
- By Doug on 01-10-17
By: John Nixon
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The Operators
- The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America's War in Afghanistan
- By: Michael Hastings
- Narrated by: Lloyd James
- Length: 12 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 438
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 382
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 386
An explosive, behind-the-scenes look into the workings of the U.S. war in Afghanistan that lifts the curtain of the world stage to reveal the devastating greed, waste, and failure surrounding this unwinnable war.
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4 out of 5 stars
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VERY INTERESTING STORY
- By Professor on 01-04-13
By: Michael Hastings
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The Accidental President
- Harry S. Truman and the Four Months That Changed the World
- By: A. J. Baime
- Narrated by: Tony Messano
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,263
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,970
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Story5 out of 5 stars 1,962
The dramatic, pulse-pounding story of Harry Truman's first four months in office, when this unlikely president had to take on Germany, Japan, Stalin, and the atomic bomb, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Exceptional
- By Jean on 11-14-17
By: A. J. Baime
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The Brilliant Disaster
- JFK, Castro, and America's Doomed Invasion of Cuba
- By: Jim Rasenberger
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 139
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 122
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 121
The U.S.-backed military invasion of Cuba in 1961 remains one of the most ill-fated blunders in American history, with echoes of the event reverberating even today. Despite the Kennedy administration’s initial public insistence that the United States had nothing to do with the invasion, it soon became clear that the complex operation had been planned and approved by the best and brightest minds at the highest reaches of Washington, including the Joint Chiefs of Staff and President John F. Kennedy himself.
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2 out of 5 stars
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US Government Perspective
- By Kindle Customer on 05-25-11
By: Jim Rasenberger
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The Fourth Star
- Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army
- By: David Cloud, Greg Jaffe
- Narrated by: Richard McGonagle
- Length: 12 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 118
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 70
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 69
They were four exceptional soldiers, a new generation asked to save an army that had been hollowed out after Vietnam. They survived the military's brutal winnowing to reach its top echelon. They became the Army's most influential generals in the crucible of Iraq. Collectively, their lives tell the story of the Army over the last four decades and illuminate the path it must travel to protect the nation over the next century.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Learning from the Military
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: David Cloud, and others
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The Main Enemy
- The Inside Story of the CIA's Final Showdown with the KGB
- By: Milton Bearden, James Risen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 833
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 744
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 734
A landmark collaboration between a thirty-year veteran of the CIA and a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, The Main Enemy is the inside story of the CIA-KGB spy wars, told through the actions of the men who fought them. Based on hundreds of interviews with operatives from both sides, The Main Enemy puts us inside the heads of CIA officers as they dodge surveillance and walk into violent ambushes in Moscow. This is the story of the generation of spies who came of age in the shadow of the Cuban missile crisis and rose to run the CIA and KGB in the last days of the Cold War.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A masterpiece of espionage history
- By kucherv on 08-21-18
By: Milton Bearden, and others