The Cornelius Ryan Award 2004

Best nonfiction book on international affairs

AWARD YEAR: 2004

AWARD NAME: The Cornelius Ryan Award 2004

RECIPIENT: Steve Coll

AFFILIATION: The Penguin Press

HONORED WORK: “Ghost Wars”

In his remarkable book, Steve Coll has brought submerged history to light and so made a critical contribution to understanding of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The devastation of that day seemed to come from nowhere. But, thanks to Coll, we now know a lot more about its origins. Combining the resourcefulness of a journalist with the documentary research of an historian, Coll has drawn the missing lines between the cold war and the war on terror. In tracing the vagaries and ultimate carelessness of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, Coll demonstrates how Osama bin Laden was an American creation. The Mujahedin were first agents in the struggle against the Soviet Union, funded and encouraged by the CIA. Then the holy warriors turned on their creators. How and why this happened is the subject of Coll’s masterful, riveting chronicle.

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