Not off the top of my head, but you could try yojoe.com and gijoewiki, and even wikipedia. They have tons of info. Sorry about the delay answering, been busy and haven't logged in for awhile.
I just looked up the book, omg its expensive. But I bet its worth it. I wanna learn all about gi joe because i know alot about star wars and transformers (im a huge fan of transformers im also on tfw2005 same user name and all) I wanna learn and get info so i can write fanfiction about before gi joe
You'll want G.I.Joe vs. Cobra the essential guide. It gives the history of Joe Colton which basically tells how GI Joe is formed. Plus GI Joe #1, which explains that the ARAH Joe, a special counter terrorist delta group, is called into action because of a threat of a new terrorist group called Cobra.