Book Description
Reviews the emergence and fall of the Taliban, their ideology and their place within Islam, and examines Afghanistan's relevance to issues relating to Islamic extremism, the international drugs trade and international terrorism.
Author : Martin Ewans
Publisher : Psychology Press
Page : 280 pages
File Size : 16,9 MB
Release : 2002
Category : Afghanistan
ISBN : 0415298261
Reviews the emergence and fall of the Taliban, their ideology and their place within Islam, and examines Afghanistan's relevance to issues relating to Islamic extremism, the international drugs trade and international terrorism.
Author : Thomas Barfield
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 408 pages
File Size : 34,50 MB
Release : 2012-03-25
Category : History
ISBN : 0691154414
Traces the political history of Afghanistan from the sixteenth century to the present, looking at what has united the people as well as the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them.
Author : Shaista Wahab
Publisher : Infobase Publishing
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 50,26 MB
Release : 2007
Category : Afghanistan
ISBN : 1438108192
Located along the busy trade routes between Asia and Europe, Afghanistan was for centuries a place where a diverse set of cultures met and exchanged goods and ideas.
Author : Carter Malkasian
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 601 pages
File Size : 43,21 MB
Release : 2021-06-15
Category : History
ISBN : 0197550797
A New York Times Notable Book Winner of 2022 Lionel Gelber Prize The first authoritative history of American's longest war by one of the world's leading scholar-practitioners. The American war in Afghanistan, which began in 2001, is now the longest armed conflict in the nation's history. It is currently winding down, and American troops are likely to leave soon but only after a stay of nearly two decades. In The American War in Afghanistan, Carter Malkasian provides the first comprehensive history of the entire conflict. Malkasian is both a leading academic authority on the subject and an experienced practitioner, having spent nearly two years working in the Afghan countryside and going on to serve as the senior advisor to General Joseph Dunford, the US military commander in Afghanistan and later the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. Drawing from a deep well of local knowledge, understanding of Pashto, and review of primary source documents, Malkasian moves through the war's multiple phases: the 2001 invasion and after; the light American footprint during the 2003 Iraq invasion; the resurgence of the Taliban in 2006, the Obama-era surge, and the various resets in strategy and force allocations that occurred from 2011 onward, culminating in the 2018-2020 peace talks. Malkasian lived through much of it, and draws from his own experiences to provide a unique vantage point on the war. Today, the Taliban is the most powerful faction, and sees victory as probable. The ultimate outcome after America leaves is inherently unpredictable given the multitude of actors there, but one thing is sure: the war did not go as America had hoped. Although the al-Qa'eda leader Osama bin Laden was killed and no major attack on the American homeland was carried out after 2001, the United States was unable to end the violence or hand off the war to the Afghan authorities, which could not survive without US military backing. The American War in Afghanistan explains why the war had such a disappointing outcome. Wise and all-encompassing, The American War in Afghanistan provides a truly vivid portrait of the conflict in all of its phases that will remain the authoritative account for years to come.
Author : Thomas J. Barfield
Publisher : Princeton University Press
Page : 62 pages
File Size : 31,93 MB
Release : 2012-05-06
Category : History
ISBN : 1400843146
When it invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the United States sought to do something previous foreign powers had never attempted: to create an Afghani state where none existed. More than a decade on, the new regime in Kabul remains plagued by illegitimacy and ineffectiveness. What happened? As Thomas Barfield shows, the history of previous efforts to build governments in Afghanistan does much to explain the difficulties besetting this newest experiment. Princeton Shorts are brief selections taken from influential Princeton University Press books and produced exclusively in ebook format. Providing unmatched insight into important contemporary issues or timeless passages from classic works of the past, Princeton Shorts enable you to be an instant expert in a world where information is everywhere but quality is at a premium.
Author : Meredith L. Runion
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 46,8 MB
Release : 2017-04-24
Category : History
ISBN :
This chronological account traces the history of Afghanistan from pre-civilization to present-day events and considers the future of democracy in Afghanistan. For centuries, Afghanistan has endured control by a gamut of political regimes as a result of its strategic location along the trade route between Asia and the Middle East. The area has been at the center of constant conflict and only in recent years has recovered from the vestiges of warfare. The second edition of this popular reference offers a fresh glimpse at the country, showing modern Afghanistan to be a melting pot of cultures, tribes, and political influences all under the guiding belief of Islam. In addition to thorough coverage of the country's political, economic, and cultural history, the book provides students with an account of recent events in Afghanistan since 2007, such as the death of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and the removal of NATO soldiers. Other changes include a revised timeline, an updated glossary, additions to the notable figures appendix, and an expanded bibliography that includes electronic resources.
Author : Craig Whitlock
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
Page : 384 pages
File Size : 16,26 MB
Release : 2022-08-30
Category : History
ISBN : 1982159014
A Washington Post Best Book of 2021 The #1 New York Times bestselling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock. Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives. Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory. Just as the Pentagon Papers changed the public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) revelation after revelation from people who played a direct role in the war from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines. In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government. All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground. Documents unearthed by The Washington Post reveal that President Bush didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander—and didn’t want to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are.” His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.” The Afghanistan Papers is a “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.
Author : Sandy Gall
Publisher : A&C Black
Page : 410 pages
File Size : 33,28 MB
Release : 2013-02-19
Category : History
ISBN : 1408822342
The most comprehensive analysis of the current Afghanistan War yet published, by bestselling writer and legendary war reporter Sandy Gall
Author : Aaron B. O'Connell
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 387 pages
File Size : 11,77 MB
Release : 2017-04-03
Category : History
ISBN : 022626579X
American and Afghan veterans contribute to this anthology of critical perspectives—“a vital contribution toward understanding the Afghanistan War” (Library Journal). When America went to war with Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11, it did so with the lofty goals of dismantling al Qaeda, removing the Taliban from power, remaking the country into a democracy. But as the mission came unmoored from reality, the United States wasted billions of dollars, and thousands of lives were lost. Our Latest Longest War is a chronicle of how, why, and in what ways the war in Afghanistan failed. Edited by prize-winning historian and Marine lieutenant colonel Aaron B. O’Connell, the essays collected here represent nine different perspectives on the war—all from veterans of the conflict, both American and Afghan. Together, they paint a picture of a war in which problems of culture, including an unbridgeable rural-urban divide, derailed nearly every field of endeavor. The authors also draw troubling parallels to the Vietnam War, arguing that ideological currents in American life explain why the US government has repeatedly used military force in pursuit of democratic nation-building. In Afghanistan, as in Vietnam, this created a dramatic mismatch of means and ends that neither money, technology, nor weapons could overcome.
Author : Matt Doeden
Publisher : Capstone
Page : 113 pages
File Size : 21,93 MB
Release : 2014
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 1476541906
"Describes the people and events of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. The reader's choices reveal the historical details"--