Matt Yglesias has been kind enough to post a portion of his reading list; here's mine, in no particular order:

  • Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam by Gilles Kepel

  • Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid

  • Taliban by Ahmed Rashid

  • Ghost Wars by Steve Coll

  • The Age of Sacred Terror by Steve Simon and Daniel Benjamin

  • Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror by Ronan Gunaratna

  • Inside Al Qaeda: How I Infiltrated the World's Deadliest Terrorist Organization by Mohamed Sifaoui

  • Holy War, Inc. by Peter Bergen

  • The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk

  • The Dust of Empire: The Race for Mastery in The Asian Hearthland by Karl E. Meyer

  • Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger

  • Boyd : The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram

  • Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America, and International Terrorism
    • by John Cooley
  • Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror by Michael Scheuer

  • Of Paradise and Power by Robert Kagan

  • Nasser: The Last Arab
    • by Said Aburish
  • City: Urbanism and its End by Douglas Rae

  • Charlie Wilson's War by George Crile

  • The Fragmentation of Afghanistan by Barnett Rubin

  • The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic by Chalmers Johnson

  • Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude by Robert Baer

  • Mullahs, Merchants, and Militants: The Economic Collapse of the Arab World by Stephen Glain

  • Churchill's Folly by Christopher Catherwood

  • Inventing Iraq by Toby Dodge

  • The Shi'i of Iraq by Yitzhak Nakash

  • The Pentagon's New Map by Thomas P. Barnett

  • The Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation's Odyssey by Fuad Ajami

  • State-Building: Governance and World Order in the 21st Century by Francis Fukuyama

  • Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael Oren

  • The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East [Again!] by Abraham Rabinovich

  • The Missing Peace by Dennis Ross

  • The Future of Political Islam by Graham Fuller

  • Plan of Attack by Bob Woodward

  • American Dynasty by Kevin Phillips

  • Against All Enemies by Richard Clarke

  • Republic of Fear by Kanan Makiya

  • Up From Conservatism by Michael Lind

  • Resurrecting Empire: Western Footprints and America's Perilous Path in the Middle East by Rashid Khalidi

  • The Secret History of the Iraq War by Yossef Bodansky

  • From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman

  • Winning Modern Wars by Wesley Clark

  • The Rise of the Vulcans by James Mann

  • The Middle East by Bernard Lewis

  • In an Uncertain World by Robert Rubin

  • All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer

  • Tropical Gangsters by Robert Klitgaard

  • Globalization and its Discontents by Joseph Stiglitz

  • In Defense of Globalization by Jagdish Bagwati

  • America Unbound by Ivo Daalder and James M. Lindsay


Not all of these were worth the effort, obviously, and I'm pretty sure I've forgotten a few. At some point I will pen short reviews of these; for now I'm just writing them down so that I have them in one place.

In the meantime, feel free to ask any questions or add any recommendations below, dear reader(s).

(updated twice to reflect my refreshed memory)