About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Steven Simon
Positive The Washington Post I do think this book... often falls into the same trap that has frustrated successive U.S. administrations: an overestimation of the degree to which our actions really matter ... But like Simon, I worry I am being too harsh in my judgments: because this is an illuminating book, written with exceeding wit and erudition ... One thing I appreciated about Simon’s broader narrative is that it does not let earlier administrations off the hook for creating the conditions that led to America’s greatest blunder since Vietnam ... This being a memoir as well as an analysis of policy, Simon cannot resist settling a few scores ... These petty slights are unfair, and Simon should avoid credentialism when it comes to policymaking.
Wesley Morgan
Positive The Washington Post Like the war itself, the book is too long, and like the war itself, it is incredibly depressing. But also like the war itself, it demands your attention, even when you would rather look away ... Over the past decade, he has managed to speak at what must have been considerable length with surely everyone on the American side—and quite a lot of Afghans as well. It shows: Because of the degree to which Morgan has immersed himself in both the people and the place, he is able to reconstruct nearly 18 years of war in this tiny valley on an almost week-by-week basis. That has some disadvantages. The cavalcade of place names and unit designations might be a challenge for the nonspecialist reader ... By the same token, I wondered at times, while reading this book, if Morgan had passed on fully interrogating the actions of the men he has clearly spent much time with ... Morgan’s diligence and immersion have advantages, too, though: He is attuned to the life of the infantryman in a way few journalists ever manage to be ... future generations would also do well to read Morgan’s book. There is no romance in it. Only a tragedy. Yet the book nonetheless ends with the American combatants looking back on the Pech Valley—and their war—with a little wistfulness.