Based on newly declassified American records, records from the Thai military and oral histories now available from Hmong survivors in the United States, this is an introduction to the war in Laos. Rather than a full history, Kurlantzick structures his story around the evolution of the CIA from intelligence service to full, clandestine war runners, and Laos as the blueprint from interventions in the 1970s and 80s, down to the abandonment of the local people who bore the brunt of the fighting. The characters involved would be unbelievable unless you already knew Edward Lansdale.