For the past sixty years, despite the negative image created by its activities around the world, the CIA has managed to maintain its prestige in the corridors of power, burying its missteps in "classified files." Initially, its mission was to gather intelligence from every corner of the globe. However, when it failed to accomplish this, it set out to change it.

Echoing the words of President Eisenhower, its failures have left us "in ruins and ashes." Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tim Weiner provides us with the first comprehensive history of the CIA – exclusively based on official documents and credible testimonies. The History of the CIA utilizes more than 50,000 documents, mostly from the agency's own archives, as well as hundreds of interviews with veteran agents – including ten former directors.

Starting from the establishment of the CIA – after World War II – and tracking its actions during the Cold War and the war on terror, it reaches up to September 11, 2001, and the invasion of Iraq, attempting to illuminate critical questions: Why have eleven American presidents and three generations of CIA officials failed to understand the world? Why did almost all directors of the Central Intelligence Agency leave it in worse condition than they found it? How and why do the failures of this legendary organization threaten and seriously jeopardize the national security of the United States?