Over the past sixty years, despite the negative image created by its activities worldwide, the CIA has managed to maintain its prestige in the corridors of power, burying its mishandlings in "highly classified files." Its initial mission was to gather information from every corner of the planet. When it failed to accomplish this, it set out to change. As President Eisenhower put it, its failures left us with "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 reliable testimonies.

The "History of the CIA" draws on 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 with the establishment of the CIA after World War II and following its actions during the Cold War and the war on terrorism, it reaches the events of September 11, 2001, and the invasion of Iraq, attempting to shed light on crucial questions:

Why did eleven American Presidents and three generations of CIA officials fail to understand the world?

Why did almost all directors of the Central Intelligence Agency leave it in a worse state than when they took over?

How and why do the failures of this legendary organization threaten and seriously endanger the national security of the United States?