On the ground in Iraq, with General Petraeus and his commanders, the author of the New York Times bestseller Masters of Chaos reports on the endgame of a controversial war.

After a series of disastrous missteps in its conduct of the war, the White House in 2006 appointed General David Petraeus as the Commanding General of the coalition forces. Tell Me How This Ends is an inside account of his attempt to turn around a failing war.

Linda Robinson conducted extensive interviews with Petraeus and his subordinate commanders and spent weeks with key U.S. and Iraqi divisions. The result is the only book that ties together military operations in Iraq and the internecine political drama that is at the heart of the civil war.

Replete with dramatic battles, behind-doors confrontations, and astute analysis, the book tells the full story of the Iraq War’s endgame, and lays out the options that will be facing the next president when he or she takes office in January 2009.

“New York Times Notable Book of the Year”

James Traub, New York Times Book Review, October 5, 2008
“…the first book about this new Iraq. It’s a first-rate piece of work, probing and conscientious.”
 

David Kirkpatrick, The New York Times, October 26, 2008
“an admiring account of the troop “surge” in Iraq that Mr. McCain was among the first to embrace.”
 

Colonel Gregory Fontenot, Military Review, November/December issue
“As a rule, hyperbole is permissible for the ‘blurbs’ on the jacket of books and not in reviews, but in the case of Linda Robinson’s Tell Me How This Ends, it’s a hard one to follow. Robinson’s book is among the best written about the war in Iraq….”
 

Military Times, November 17, 2008
“The author who persuaded press-shy Special Forces soldiers to open up in the fascinating “Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces” (PublicAffairs, 2004) has done it again. This time, she persuaded Petraeus — now head of U.S. Central Command — and others in Iraq to talk, and she listened. And evidently, she took good notes. The result is not as dramatic as “Chaos,” but given the themes — politics and management — the insights in “Tell Me How This Ends” make the book worthwhile contemporary history and, foremost, military biography.”

John Nagl, Army Magazine, December issue
“Likely to remain the best analysis of General Petraeus’ role in the decisive years of the war in Iraq short of the general’s own memoirs.”

Linda Robinson is the bestselling author of Masters of Chaos and author in residence at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies’ Strategic Studies Program. A Contributing Editor for US News and World Report, she received the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Reporting on National Defense in 2005 and was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University 2000-01. She lives outside Washington D.C.

Imprint: PublicAffairs
Distributor: Perseus Books Group
Publication Date: 09-01-2008
Pages: 432
Measurements: 9.25in X 6.13in X 27.00oz