For the last sixty years, the CIA has managed to maintain a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record, burying its blunders in top-secret archives. Its mission was to know the world. When it did not succeed, it set out to change the world. Its failures have handed us, in the words of President Eisenhower, “a legacy of ashes.”

Now Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tim Weiner offers the first definitive history of the CIA—and everything is on the record. LEGACY OF ASHES is based on more than 50,000 documents, primarily from the archives of the CIA itself, and hundreds of interviews with CIA veterans, including ten Directors of Central Intelligence. It takes the CIA from its creation after World War II, through its battles in the cold war and the war on terror, to its near-collapse after 9/ll.

Tim Weiner’s past work on the CIA and American intelligence was hailed as “impressively reported” and “immensely entertaining” in The New York Times.

The Wall Street Journal called it “truly extraordinary . . . the best book ever written on a case of espionage.” Here is the hidden history of the CIA: why eleven presidents and three generations of CIA officers have been unable to understand the world; why nearly every CIA director has left the agency in worse shape than he found it; and how these failures have profoundly jeopardized our national security.

From the Hardcover edition.

"Must reading for anyone interested in the CIA or American intelligence since World War II."

—The Washington Post

“Legacy of Ashes is the best book I've yet read on the CIA's covert actions."

—Edward Jay Epstein, The Wall Street Journal

"Legacy of Ashes should be must-reading for every presidential candidate—and every American who wants to understand why the nation repeatedly stumbles into one disaster abroad after another.”

—The Boston Globe

“A timely and vital contribution . . . [that] glitters with relevance.”

—Los Angeles Times

“This is by far the scariest book of the year.”

—The Christian Science Monitor

“Tim Weiner has read widely and dug deeply to produce this marvelous and convincing history of the CIA across six decades. That every quote is also on the record is a testament to his skill and also, thankfully, to the transparency that endures in the American political system.”

—Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars

“Legacy of Ashes, like all first-rate histories, is not only richly informative but provocative and insightful. It is a combustible mix of deeply-researched history, solid reporting and revealing anecdotes. Tim Weiner’s history of the CIA explains not merely the past but the present, laying out in fine detail the structural and philosophical flaws that have dogged the Agency from day one and which continue to leave the country unduly vulnerable.”

—Ted Gup, author of The Book of Honor and Nation of Secrets

“This is a fascinating, deeply scary book. With prodigious reporting and on-the-record sources, Tim Weiner shows why the CIA has done so poorly in traditional intelligence. It’s a riveting tale and also a warning. America must develop the ability—and the will—to know and face the facts about the world.”

—Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Einstein: His Life and Universe

This is a timely, immensely readable, and highly critical history of the CIA, culminating with the most recent catastrophic failures in Iraq.”

—Mark Bowden, author of BLACKHAWK DOWN

For the last 60 years, the CIA has managed to maintain a formidable reputation in spite of its terrible record. Now Pulitzer Prize-winning author Weiner offers the first definitive history of the CIA--and everything is on the record.

With shocking revelations that made headlines in papers across the country, Pulitzer-Prize-winner Tim Weiner gets at the truth behind the CIA and uncovers here why nearly every CIA Director has left the agency in worse shape than when he found it; and how these profound failures jeopardize our national security.

Tim Weiner is a reporter for The New York Times. He has written on American intelligence for twenty years, and won the Pulitzer Prize for his work on secret national security programs. He has traveled to Afghanistan and other nations to investigate CIA covert operations firsthand. This is his third book.