Charlie Wilson's War is the untold story of the last battle of the Cold War and how it fueled the rise of militant Islam. Charlie Wilson, a maverick congressman from east Texas, conspired with a rogue CIA operative to launch the biggest, meanest, and most successful covert operation in the Agency's history.

In the early 1980s, after a Houston socialite turned Wilson's attention to the ragged Afghan freedom fighters who continued to fight

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The author describes how, after working as a humanitarian around the world, he realized that he could do nothing to stop violence or prevent people from becoming refugees and soon joined the elite Navy SEALs, where he drew on his humanitarian training as he battled injustice.