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Afghanistan traces the historic struggles and the changing nature of political authority in this volatile region of the world, from the Mughal Empire in the 16th century to the Taliban resurgence today. Thomas Barfield introduces listeners to the bewildering diversity of tribal and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, explaining what unites them as Afghans despite the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them.
Rashid examines Central Asia, and the corridors of power in Washington and Europe, to see how the promised nation building in the region has progressed. His conclusions are devastating.
Today, most Westerners still see the war in Afghanistan as a contest between democracy and Islamist fanaticism. That war is real, but it sits atop an older struggle between Kabul and the countryside, between order and chaos, between a modernist impulse to join the world and the pull of an older Afghanistan - a tribal universe of village republics permeated by Islam. Now, Tamim Ansary draws on his Afghan background, Muslim roots, and Western and Afghan sources to explain history from the inside out and to illuminate the long, internal struggle that the outside world has never fully understood.
For more than 2,500 years, the forbidding territory of Afghanistan has served as a vital crossroads not only for armies but also for clashes between civilizations. As a result of the United States' engaging in armed conflict with the Afghan regime, an understanding of the military history of that blood-soaked land has become essential to every American.
The explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan. With the publication of Ghost Wars, Steve Coll became not only a Pulitzer Prize winner, but also the expert on the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of Bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998.
In 2003, the Special Forces soldiers entered an area later called "the most dangerous place in Afghanistan". Here, where the line between civilians and armed zealots was indistinct, they illustrated the Afghan proverb "I destroy my enemy by making him my friend." Fry recounts how they were seen as welcome guests rather than invaders. Soon after their deployment ended, the Pech Valley reverted to turmoil. Their success was never replicated.
Afghanistan traces the historic struggles and the changing nature of political authority in this volatile region of the world, from the Mughal Empire in the 16th century to the Taliban resurgence today. Thomas Barfield introduces listeners to the bewildering diversity of tribal and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, explaining what unites them as Afghans despite the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them.
Rashid examines Central Asia, and the corridors of power in Washington and Europe, to see how the promised nation building in the region has progressed. His conclusions are devastating.
Today, most Westerners still see the war in Afghanistan as a contest between democracy and Islamist fanaticism. That war is real, but it sits atop an older struggle between Kabul and the countryside, between order and chaos, between a modernist impulse to join the world and the pull of an older Afghanistan - a tribal universe of village republics permeated by Islam. Now, Tamim Ansary draws on his Afghan background, Muslim roots, and Western and Afghan sources to explain history from the inside out and to illuminate the long, internal struggle that the outside world has never fully understood.
For more than 2,500 years, the forbidding territory of Afghanistan has served as a vital crossroads not only for armies but also for clashes between civilizations. As a result of the United States' engaging in armed conflict with the Afghan regime, an understanding of the military history of that blood-soaked land has become essential to every American.
The explosive first-hand account of America's secret history in Afghanistan. With the publication of Ghost Wars, Steve Coll became not only a Pulitzer Prize winner, but also the expert on the rise of the Taliban, the emergence of Bin Laden, and the secret efforts by CIA officers and their agents to capture or kill Bin Laden in Afghanistan after 1998.
In 2003, the Special Forces soldiers entered an area later called "the most dangerous place in Afghanistan". Here, where the line between civilians and armed zealots was indistinct, they illustrated the Afghan proverb "I destroy my enemy by making him my friend." Fry recounts how they were seen as welcome guests rather than invaders. Soon after their deployment ended, the Pech Valley reverted to turmoil. Their success was never replicated.
Resuming the narrative of his Pulitzer Prize-winning Ghost Wars, best-selling author Steve Coll tells for the first time the epic and enthralling story of America's intelligence, military, and diplomatic efforts to defeat Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan since 9/11.
In a breathtaking chronicle, acclaimed journalist Anand Gopal traces in vivid detail the lives of three Afghans caught in America's war on terror. He follows a Taliban commander who rises from scrawny teenager to leading insurgent, a U.S.-backed warlord who uses the American military to gain personal wealth and power, and a village housewife trapped between the two sides who discovers the devastating cost of neutrality.
With the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Looming Tower, Lawrence Wright became generally acknowledged as one of our major journalists writing on terrorism in the Middle East. This collection draws on several articles he wrote while researching that book as well as many that he's written since, following where and how al-Qaeda and its core cultlike beliefs have morphed and spread.
Pulitzer Prize, General nonfiction, 2016. When Jordan granted amnesty to a group of political prisoners in 1999, it little realized that among them was Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a terrorist mastermind and soon the architect of an Islamist movement bent on dominating the Middle East. In Black Flags, an unprecedented account of the rise of ISIS, Joby Warrick shows how the zeal of this one man and the strategic mistakes of Presidents Bush and Obama led to the banner of ISIS being raised over huge swaths of Syria and Iraq.
In The Cold War, Odd Arne Westad offers a new perspective on a century when a superpower rivalry and an ideological war transformed every corner of our globe. We traditionally think of the Cold War as a post-World War II diplomatic and military conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Westad argues that the conflict must be understood as a global ideological confrontation with roots in the industrial revolution and with continuing implications for the world today.
From the winter of 2006 through the spring of 2007, 250 marines from Echo Company, Second Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment, fought daily in the dangerous, dense city streets of Ramadi, Iraq, during the Multi-National Forces Surge ordered by President George W. Bush. The marines' mission: to kill or capture anti-Iraqi forces. Their experience: like being in hell. Now Major Scott A. Huesing, the commander who led Echo Company through Ramadi, takes listeners back to the streets of Ramadi in a visceral, gripping portrayal of modern urban combat.
The Great Game between Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia was fought across desolate terrain from the Caucasus to China, over the lonely passes of the Parmirs and Karakorams, in the blazing Kerman and Helmund deserts, and through the caravan towns of the old Silk Road - both powers scrambling to control access to the riches of India and the East. When play first began, the frontiers of Russia and British India lay 2000 miles apart; by the end, this distance had shrunk to 20 miles at some points.
What are the possibilities—and hazards—facing America as it withdraws from Afghanistan and reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? Where is the Taliban now in both of these countries? What does the immediate future hold, and what are America’s choices going forward? These are some of the crucial questions that Ahmed Rashid—Pakistan’s preeminent journalist—takes on in this follow-up to his acclaimed Descent into Chaos.
In a remote enemy-held valley in Afghanistan, a Special Forces team planned to scale a steep mountain to surprise and capture a terrorist leader. But before they found the target, the target found them. The team was caught in a deadly ambush that threatened not only their lives but the entire mission. The elite soldiers fought huddled for hours on a small rock ledge as rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire rained down on them.
A sweeping narrative history of the events leading to 9/11, a groundbreaking look at the people and ideas, the terrorist plans and the Western intelligence failures that culminated in the assault on America. Lawrence Wright's remarkable book is based on five years of research and hundreds of interviews that he conducted in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan, England, France, Germany, Spain, and the United States.
Kilcullen brings together his most salient writings on this vitally important topic. Here is a picture of modern warfare by someone who has had his boots on the ground in some of today's worst trouble spots - including Iraq and Afghanistan - and who has been studying counterinsurgency since 1985. Filled with down-to-earth, common-sense insights, this book is the definitive account of counterinsurgency, indispensable for all those interested in making sense of our world in an age of terror.
Initially dismissed by US President Barack Obama, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has shocked the world by conquering massive territories in both countries and promising to create a vast new Muslim caliphate that observes the strict dictates of Sharia law. In ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, American journalist Michael Weiss and Syrian analyst Hassan Hassan explain how these violent extremists evolved from a nearly defeated Iraqi insurgent group into a jihadi army of international volunteers who have conquered territory equal to the size of Great Britain.
Ahmed Rashid is a correspondent for the Far Eastern Economic Review and the Daily Telegraph reporting on Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia.
"Valuable and informative." (The New York Times)
"An excellent political and historical account of the movement's rise to power." (The Nation)
"Indispensable." (Los Angeles Times Book Review)
This was a very good book. I was looking for an explaination to the events that led to the rise of these terrorists. This book was a very good, unbiased account of those events. Like most history, it does not judge, it only explains. It does so in great detail that is sometimes hard to follow, but it is well worth the effort. It also relates the truth of this situation, in no uncertain terms: This is a far more compli
cated issue than it appears. Those countries who we have been led to believe are our allies have a strange conection to this land and its troubles. Very well worth it.
23 of 23 people found this review helpful
The author has deep roots in central Asia and a long history in working and reporting in Afghanistan. He uses this knowledge to provide a detailed description of the history and the social fabric of Afghanistan as a background for an understanding of the rise to power of the Taliban and the involvement of the surrounding countries as well as the United States and Russia.
This is not a book for those who only want a lurid depiction of the Taliban, but rather for those seeking an in depth understanding of the region and of the competing interests that have led to the current situation. It is fascinating, horrific, and riveting.
At first one might think that the book was written before 9/11, but it was published shortly after, however, it does not deal with Afghanistan as it now exists after 10 years of U.S. armed forces involvement. The book is relevant because it provides the underpinning for understanding the problems facing the country today. The author appears to be as unbiased as a human being can be. As for using the "transportation mafia" being undefined or unspecified, it seemed clear to me that it referred to the criminals transporting heroin, not simply the movement of trade through the country. In short, the book educated and informed me about the social, economic, political, and military history of the civil war.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful
Detailed, factual, but dry reading.
Only for the seriously interested reader.
4 of 6 people found this review helpful
This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?
MUCH less detail. However, I think this book was written exactly for that same reason.
I think, the book had to be like that, but I expected something less complicated. Right, the situation IS complicated, but there was really too many persons, too many fractions, too many land areas and to much of everything to really get hold on the essentials. It is impossible to stay on track with this audiobook where you cannot just flip back a couple of pages to re-read and remember who this or that person was.
I think, this book would do VERY well in its physical form for someone who would like to really study this situation. This will tell you everything. But I, personally, had expected something more broadly targeted and "written for everybody".
What about Nadia May’s performance did you like?
Nice an clear speaking.
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
Boredom and real disappointment.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful
This book is very dated, for one thing. The author also exhibits some annoying biases throughout the book, for example repeatedly referring "the transport mafia", which is never really defined, but presumed to be some powerful and shadowy entities who support whichever side will keep the roads open for trade. As I see it, that's just basic economics at work, nothing insidious about it. "Afghanistan" by Stephen Tanner provided better history about the Taliban, and about Afghanistan, without the annoying bias. "Destiny Disrupted" by Tamim Ansary was also more informative and much better written than this book.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful