Objective Troy: A Terrorist, a President, and the Rise of the Drone

Based on years of reporting, Scott Shane’s winning book is a brilliant reckoning with the moral challenge of terrorism and a masterful chronicle of our times. It tells the gripping and unsettling story of Anwar al-Awlaki, the once-celebrated American imam who called for moderation after 9/11 but ultimately directed his outsize talents to the mass murder of his fellow citizens, and follows Barack Obama’s campaign against the excesses of the Bush counterterrorism programs and his eventual embrace of the targeted killing of suspected militants. And it recounts how the president directed the mammoth machinery of spy agencies to hunt Awlaki down in a frantic pursuit that would end with a missile fired using the robotic technology that has changed warfare—the drone. Shane weaves the clash between president and terrorist into both a riveting narrative and a deeply human account of the defining conflict of our era.