Salvador
This is one of Joan Didion's much earlier books. In "Salvador," she chronicles the horrors she witnessed while in El Salvador during the country's civil war in 1982. The book came from a series of essays Didion submitted to "The New York Review of Books," and outlines how the United States used the bloody war in the fight against Communism. The book thus offers a unique perspective on how wars are used in foreign policy and for political leverage.