In
All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, Paula Broadwell and Vernon Loeb examine Petraeus’s career, his intellectual development as a military officer, and his impact on the U.S. military. Inherent in the story are salient lessons of transformational leadership -- inspirational insights for everyone from CEOs to young lieutenants.
While conducting research over the past three years, Broadwell was afforded extensive access by General Petraeus, his mentors, his subordinates, and his longtime friends. Over the course of Petraeus's command of ISAF-Afghanistan from July 2010 through July 2011, Broadwell embedded with the general, his headquarters staff, and his soldiers on the front lines of fighting across Afghanistan to chronicle the experiences of this American general as they are brought to bear in the terrible crucible of war. All In draws on hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with Petraeus and his top officers and soldiers and on Broadwell's frontline reporting experience to tell the inside story of this commander's development and leadership in war from every vantage point.
When Petraeus assumed command in Afghanistan in July 2010, the conflict looked as bleak as at any moment in America’s nine years on the ground there. Petraeus’s defining idea - counterinsurgency - was immediately put to its most difficult test: the hard lessons learned during the surge in Iraq were to be applied in a radically different theater. To inform this unprecedented reporting of Petraeus’s command in Afghanistan, Broadwell takes readers through the arc of his "intellectual development" and evolution as a soldier from his education at West Point in the wake of Vietnam to his earlier service in Central America, Haiti, Kuwait, Bosnia, and Iraq.
In addition to presenting a portrait of the strategic challenges of modern warfare from Petraeus's perspective and providing unique biographical snapshots of his development, All In chronicles the outcome in Afghanistan of counterinsurgency strategies through the operational commands of several Petraeus protégés, with special emphasis on those who, like Petraeus, served with the 101st Airborne Division. All In also documents the general's role in the war in Washington, going behind the scenes for exclusive insights of negotiations during policy reviews of Afghanistan in Congress, the Pentagon, and the White House. Broadwell ultimately appraises Petraeus's impact on the entire U.S. military, including his role in galvanizing institutional adaptation. As America surveys a decade of untraditional warfare, All In shows that this much is clear: the career of General David Petraeus profoundly shaped our military and left an indelible mark on the next generation's leaders.
