Author: Andrew Quilty

As night fell on Aug. 15, 2021, the Taliban entered Kabul, capital of Afghanistan. After a 20-year conflict with the US, its western allies and a proxy Afghan government, the militant group was about to bury yet another foreign foe in “the graveyard of empires.”

Andrew Quilty was one of a handful of western journalists who stayed in Kabul as the city fell. The book offers his first- hand account of those events, according to a review on goodreads.com

And for the US, the superpower, this was yet another foreign disaster. As cities and towns fell to the Taliban in rapid succession, western troops and embassy staff scrambled to flee a country of which its government had lost control.

To the world, Kabul in August looked like Saigon in 1975. August in Kabul is the story of how America’s longest mission came to an abrupt and humiliating end, told through the eyes of Afghans whose lives have been turned upside down: a young woman who harbors dreams of a university education; and a presidential staffer who works desperately to hold things together as the government collapses around him.