The Limits of Soviet Power (Pelican)

Jonathan Steele

Penguin Books, Ltd.

The South African Connection: Western Investment in Apartheid

Ruth First

Christabel Gurney

Barnes_and_Noble

Eternal Russia: Yeltsin, Gorbachev and the Mirage of Democracy

History

Europe

Faber and Faber

As the dreadful reality of the Coalition's defeat in Iraq begins to sink in, one question dominates Washington and London: why? In this controversial new book, award-winning journalist Jonathan Steele provides a stark and arresting answer: Bush and Blair were defeated from the day they decided to occupy the country. Iraq had enough of foreign armies. Steele describes the memories of centuries of humiliations that have scarred the Iraqi national psyche, creating a powerful and deeply felt nationalism. Drawing his unique access to senior Western policymakers, Steele shows how the key players in the occupying coalition totally failed to inform themselves about this smouldering backhistory of resentment and suspicion. Drawing on hundreds of interviews with ordinary Iraqis, Steele shows for the first time how the staging posts of the conflict so familiar to Western newspaper readers were seen by the Iraqis themselves.Blending vivid reportage, informed analysis and sweeping historical narrative, "Defeat" is the definitive anatomy of an historic catastrophe.

Defeat

Asia

I B Tauris Academic

A masterful blend of graphic reporting, illuminating interviews, and insightful analysis. Ghosts of Afghanistan is the first account of Afghanistan's turbulent recent history by an independent eyewitness.Jonathan Steele, an award-winning journalist and commentator, has covered the country since his first visit there as a reporter in 1981. He tracked the Soviet occupation and the communist regime of Najibullah, which held the Western-backed resistance at bay for three years after the Soviets left. He covered the arrival of the Taliban to power in Kabul in 1996, and their retreat from Kandahar under the weight of U.S. bombing in 2001. Most recently Steele has reported from the epicenter of the Taliban resurgence in Helmand.Ghosts of Afghanistan turns a spotlight on the numerous myths about Afghanistan that have bedeviled foreign policy-makers and driven them to repeat earlier mistakes. Steele has conducted numerous interviews with ordinary Afghans, two of the country's Communist presidents, senior Soviet occupation officials, as well as Taliban leaders, Western diplomats, NATO advisers, and United Nations negotiators.Comparing the challenges facing the Obama Administration as it seeks to find an exit strategy with those the Kremlin faced in the 1980s, Steele cautions that military victory will elude the West just as it eluded the Kremlin. Showing how and why Soviet efforts to negotiate an end to the war came to nothing, he explains how negotiations today could put a stop to the tragedies of civil war and foreign intervention that have afflicted Afghanistan for three decades.

Ghosts of Afghanistan: Hard Truths and Foreign Myths

Portobello Books

Defeat: Why They Lost Iraq

Middle East

I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd

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Books by Jonathan Steele