From the front lines of the battle against Islamic fundamentalism, a searing, unforgettable book that captures the human essence of the greatest conflict of our time.

Through the eyes of Dexter Filkins, the prizewinning New York Times correspondent whose work was hailed by David Halberstam as “reporting of the highest quality imaginable,” we witness the remarkable chain of events that began with the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, continued with the attacks of 9/11, and moved on to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Filkins’s narrative moves across a vast and various landscape of amazing characters and astonishing scenes: deserts, mountains, and streets of carnage; a public amputation performed by Taliban; children frolicking in minefields; skies streaked white by the contrails of B-52s; a night’s sleep in the rubble of Ground Zero.

We embark on a foot patrol through the shadowy streets of Ramadi, venture into a torture chamber run by Saddam Hussein. We go into the homes of suicide bombers and into street-to-street fighting with a battalion of marines. We meet Iraqi insurgents, an American captain who loses a quarter of his men in eight days, and a young soldier from Georgia on a rooftop at midnight reminiscing about his girlfriend back home. A car bomb explodes, bullets fly, and a mother cradles her blinded son.

Like no other book, The Forever War allows us a visceral understanding of today’s battlefields and of the experiences of the people on the ground, warriors and innocents alike. It is a brilliant, fearless work, not just about America’s wars after 9/11, but ultimately about the nature of war itself.

Dexter Price Filkins (born c. 1961) is an American journalist who reports for The New York Times Magazine. He has been reporting from Iraq since 2004. His reporting from Afghanistan won him a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 2002.

Prior to joining The New York Times in October, 2000, Filkins was New Delhi bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times for three years.

Filkins received the 2004 George Polk Award for War Reporting given annually by Long Island University to honor contributions to journalistic integrity and investigative reporting.

In 2006-07, Filkins was at Harvard University on a Nieman Fellowship.

Filkins' book, The Forever War, is about his experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq. It was published September 16, 2008.