4. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA
By Tim Weiner
Publisher: Doubleday
448 pages
$27.95

The infinitely fascinating, endlessly depressing history of the Central Intelligence Agency, much of which amounts, in Weiner's assessment, to one mistake and misfire and missed opportunity after another, in China, Iran, the Soviet Union, India, the Middle East and just about everywhere else the U.S. desperately needed inside information and didn't get it.