Afghanistan

What Everyone Needs to Know

By: Barnett R. Rubin

Narrated by: David Stifel

Afghanistan, a landlocked country in Central Asia, has improbably been at the center of international geopolitics for four decades. After the Soviet Union invaded in 1980, Afghanistan descended into an unending conflict that featured at various points most of the world's major powers. In the mid-1990s, the country entered a new phase, when the Taliban took power and imposed order based on a harsh, repressive version of Islamic law. Infamously, the sheltered Osama bin Laden, whose attack on 9/11 of the Twin Towers ushered in the global war on terror, drew tens of thousands of American troops to the country, where they remain today.

In Afghanistan: What Everyone Needs to Know, leading scholar Barnett R. Rubin provides an overview of this complicated nation. After providing a concise history of Afghanistan, he explores the various peoples and cultures of the country and its relations with neighbors like Pakistan and Iran. He also provides an authoritative overview of the conflicts that have plagued the country since the Soviet invasion. Both wide-ranging and pithy, this book explains why Afghanistan matters and what its possible future might look like.

©2020 Oxford University Press (P)2020 Tantor

Essential to Understanding the Taliban and the American Withdrawal

This is a lucid and authoritative analysis of events in Afghanistan, which covers a lot of ground. It looks at Afghanistan historically, culturally, geographically, and politically. And it answers some of the most commonly asked questions about it.

If you are new to the country, it is a great introduction. Yet, Rubin is a respected academic authority on the country as well as a former advisor to both the United Nations and United States. So, he offers much for the experienced Afghan observer as well, especially in regards right up to the recent Taliban sweep of the country.

The account is lucid, authoritative, incisive, and comprehensive. I highly recommend it!

Theo Horesh, author of The Holocausts We All Deny

Deeply grounded

Rubin knows the history and people from up close. The reader is awful. Where Rubin is witty and fun, the reader is pompous and tiresome. His mispronunciation is distracting.