Best non-fiction book on international affairs
AWARD DATE: 2007
AWARD NAME: The Cornelius Ryan Award 2007
RECIPIENT: Bob Drogin
AFFILIATION: Random House
HONORED WORK: “Curveball: Spies, Lies, and the Con Man Who Caused a War”
How did the U.S. get it so wrong about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Bob Drogin, national security and intelligence reporter for the Los Angeles Times, provides much of the answer in this anatomy of the CIA’s drive to prove the existence of chemical weapons in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. The central thread of Drogin’s narrative – the story of an Iraqi refugee with a dubious story about mobile germ labs – illustrates the White House’s grim determination to seize on any evidence, however flimsy, to justify the invasion. From there Drogin expands his cast of characters to include German spies, White House officialdom, the Iraqi resistance and the U.N. Along the way he uncovers a wealth of new detail about one of the worst intelligence failures in American history.
Citation for Excellence:
Edward Luce
Doubleday
“In Spite of the Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India”