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The American Military Adrift in Afghanistan's Pech Valley
by Wesley Morgan
When we think of the war in Afghanistan, chances are we're thinking of a small, remote corner of the country where American military action has been concentrated: the Pech and its tributary valleys in Kunar and Nuristan provinces.
The rugged, steep terrain and thick forests made the region a natural hiding spot for targets in the American war on terror, from Osama bin Laden to the Islamic State, and it has been the site of constant U.S. military activity for nearly two decades. Even as the U.S. presence in Afghanistan transitions to a drone war, the Pech has remained at the center of it, a testbed for a new method of remote warfare.
Wesley Morgan first visited the Pech in 2010, while he was still a college student embedding with military units as a freelancer. By then, the Pech and its infamous tributary the Korengal had become emblematic of the war, but Morgan found that few of the troops fighting there could explain why their remote outposts had been built. In The Hardest Place, he unravels the history those troops didn't know, captures the culture and reality of the war through both American and Afghan eyes, and reports on the snowballing American missteps that made each unit's job harder than the last as storied outfits like Marines, paratroopers, Rangers, Green Berets, and SEALs all took their turn.
Through reporting trips, hundreds of interviews with Americans and Afghans, and documentary research, Morgan writes vividly of large-scale missions gone awry, years-long hunts for single individuals, and the soldiers, Marines, commandos, and intelligence operatives who cycle through, along with several who return again and again to the same slowly evolving fight.
As the war drags on through its third presidential administration, Morgan concludes that we've created a status quo that could last forever in the Pech, with the military and intelligence agencies always in search of the next target.
"[A]n exhaustive and deeply reported history of U.S. military presence in Afghanistan's Pech river valley...Morgan enriches his impressive research and insightful analysis with vivid writing and deft character sketches. The result is a definitive portrait of the epicenter of America's longest war." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"The author, who spent a good deal of time in the region, interviewed many of the soldiers who served in the Pech as well as a number of Afghan locals. The result is a sobering look at how the same mistakes were repeated by subsequent deployments, with predictable results. Required reading for anyone who wants to understand the war in Afghanistan." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Although this is a lengthy book, it reads easily and, within its accessible pages, readers can gain a better understanding of an ongoing, yet often forgotten war. An essential, thoroughly reported work." - Library Journal (starred review)
"Vivid, balanced, and comprehensive, The Hardest Place illuminates the endless American war in Afghanistan as few other battle narratives have. Wesley Morgan has written a saga of courage and futility, of valor and error and heartbreak." - Rick Atkinson, author of the Liberation Trilogy and The British Are Coming
"America's war in Afghanistan is dangerous, complicated, and now in its second decade. Few books have told the real story of this lengthy conflict, but Wesley Morgan has pulled off this feat by focusing his deep reporting and clear writing on eastern Afghanistan, where many of the key battles played out. The Hardest Place is one of the best books telling the story of America's longest war." - Peter Bergen, author of Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for Bin Laden from 9/11 to Abbottabad
"Readers who want to understand the war in Afghanistan and the experiences of those who fight in their name should read Wesley Morgan's impeccably researched and well-told story...The Hardest Place explains not only why America's war in Afghanistan was bound to be difficult, but also why it has been much harder than it had to be." - Lt. Gen. (Ret.) H. R. McMaster, former national security adviser and author of Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World
"A superb piece of writing...In years to come, people will look at the war in Afghanistan and wonder how it was that U.S. troops were sent to remote, forsaken places, rotation after rotation, achieving so little at such great cost in terms of blood and treasure. They will need look no further than Morgan's detailed and deeply researched account of American troops in the Pech. The book is a testament to the dedication of American soldiers to a hopeless cause." - Emma Sky, director of Yale World Fellows and author of The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq
This information about The Hardest Place was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Wesley Morgan is a military affairs reporter who most recently covered the Pentagon for two and a half years at Politico. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in Washington, D.C., Iraq, and Afghanistan, contributing stories to the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Atlantic and other publications. He is an alumnus of Princeton University.
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