Author: David B. Edwards Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520926870 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 377
Book Description
In this powerful book, David B. Edwards traces the lives of three recent Afghan leaders in Afghanistan's history--Nur Muhammad Taraki, Samiullah Safi, and Qazi Amin Waqad--to explain how the promise of progress and prosperity that animated Afghanistan in the 1960s crumbled and became the present tragedy of discord, destruction, and despair. Before Taliban builds on the foundation that Edwards laid in his previous book, Heroes of the Age, in which he examines the lives of three significant figures of the late nineteenth century--a tribal khan, a Muslim saint, and a prince who became king of the newly created state. In the mid twentieth century, Afghans believed their nation could be a model of economic and social development that would inspire the world. Instead, political conflict, foreign invasion, and civil war have left the country impoverished and politically dysfunctional. Each of the men Edwards profiles were engaged in the political struggles of the country's recent history. They hoped to see Afghanistan become a more just and democratic nation. But their visions for their country were radically different, and in the end, all three failed and were killed or exiled. Now, Afghanistan is associated with international terrorism, drug trafficking, and repression. Before Taliban tells these men's stories and provides a thorough analysis of why their dreams for a progressive nation lie in ruins while the Taliban has succeeded. In Edwards's able hands, this culturally informed biography provides a mesmerizing and revealing look into the social and cultural contexts of political change.
Author: David B. Edwards Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 0520228618 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 376
Book Description
If you want to read one book to understand the background to the political conflicts in Afghanistan and the Taliban's rise to power, this is the book. Edwards tells the stories of three men--a Marxist politician, a tribal leader, and an Islamic militant--to explain the complex political culture of Afghanistan.
Author: Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef Publisher: Hurst & Company Limited ISBN: 1849041520 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 382
Book Description
Abdul Zaeef describes growing up in poverty in rural Kandahar province, which he fled for Pakistan after the Russian invasion of 1979. Zaeef joined the jihad in 1983, was seriously wounded in several encounters and met many leading figures of the resistance, including the current Taliban head, Mullah Mohammad Omar. Disgusted by the lawlessness that ensued after the Soviet withdrawal, Zaeef was one among the former mujahidin who were closely involved in the emergence of the Taliban, in 1994. He then details his Taliban career, including negotiations with Ahmed Shah Massoud and role as ambassador to Pakistan during 9/11. In early 2002 Zaeef was handed over to American forces in Islamabad and spent four and a half years in prison in Bagram and Guantanamo before being released without charge. My Life with the Taliban offers insights into the Pashtun village communities that are the Taliban's bedrock and helps to explain what drives men like Zaeef to take up arms against the foreigners who are foolish enough to invade his homeland.
Author: Mary Smith Publisher: Iynx Publishing ISBN: Category : History Languages : en Pages : 274
Book Description
The women of Afghanistan, living in a country long plagued by war and displacement, have also had to struggle with a form of cultural and religious oppression that makes life immeasurably more difficult. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism severely cu
Author: Jonathan Cristol Publisher: Springer ISBN: 3319971727 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 118
Book Description
This book tells the story of the United States’ relationship with the Taliban from the start of the Taliban movement until its retreat from Kabul in the face of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The US and the Taliban held countless meetings, but could never come to a workable arrangement, and this book examines both why diplomatic recognition was so important to the Taliban government and why the US refused to recognize it. It presents a concise, readable, and interesting perspective on US/Taliban relations from the fall of Kabul in 1996 until the fall of Kabul in 2001.
Author: David B. Edwards Publisher: Univ of California Press ISBN: 9780520200647 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 332
Book Description
Edwards contends that Afghanistan's troubles derive less from foreign forces and the ideological divisions between groups than they do from the moral incoherence of Afghanistan itself.
Author: Malala Yousafzai Publisher: Little, Brown ISBN: 0316322415 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 366
Book Description
A MEMOIR BY THE YOUNGEST RECIPIENT OF THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE As seen on Netflix with David Letterman "I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday." When the Taliban took control of the Swat Valley in Pakistan, one girl spoke out. Malala Yousafzai refused to be silenced and fought for her right to an education. On Tuesday, October 9, 2012, when she was fifteen, she almost paid the ultimate price. She was shot in the head at point-blank range while riding the bus home from school, and few expected her to survive. Instead, Malala's miraculous recovery has taken her on an extraordinary journey from a remote valley in northern Pakistan to the halls of the United Nations in New York. At sixteen, she became a global symbol of peaceful protest and the youngest nominee ever for the Nobel Peace Prize. I AM MALALA is the remarkable tale of a family uprooted by global terrorism, of the fight for girls' education, of a father who, himself a school owner, championed and encouraged his daughter to write and attend school, and of brave parents who have a fierce love for their daughter in a society that prizes sons. I AM MALALA will make you believe in the power of one person's voice to inspire change in the world.
Author: Alex Strick van Linschoten Publisher: Oxford University Press ISBN: 0190934832 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 572
Book Description
Who are the Taliban? Are they a militant movement? Are they religious scholars? The fact that these and other questions are still raised with frequency is testimony to the way the movement has been studied, often at arm's length and with scant use of primary sources. The Taliban Reader forges a new path, bringing together an extensive range of largely unseen sources in a guide to the Afghan Islamist movement from a unique insider perspective. Ideal for students, journalists and scholars alike, this book is the result of an unprecedented, decade-long effort to encourage the emergence of participant-centered accounts of Afghan history. This ground-breaking collection, ranging from news articles and opinion pieces to online publications and poems transcribed by hand in the field, sets the stage for a recalibration of how we understand and study the Afghan Taliban. It challenges researchers to forge new norms in the documentation of conflict and provides insight into the future trajectory of political Islamism in South Asia and the Middle East.
Author: Julie Hill Publisher: Bookbaby ISBN: 9781667804828 Category : Biography & Autobiography Languages : en Pages : 276
Book Description
An engaging and richly appreciative account of life in Afghanistan in Pre-Taliban times. Many books have been written in the past thirty-five years about Afghanistan's war and its geopolitics of terrorism, but none have provided an intimate view of the country and of Afghan society from the viewpoint of a largely neutral observer. Set during the golden years of Afghanistan --a rare period of peace in the mid1970-- it records memorable and sometime humorous diplomatic encounters between East and West. Its ground level perspective differs from the usual accounts of military men and politicians, offering an intimate view of Afghanistan and its people, including he foreign community. Fluent in Dari, the author was involved with the Diplomatic Wife's Organization and in conversations with ordinary citizens in the country's remote corners. Anything about Afghanistan can bear political ramifications, given the torturous history of that country, but these are foremost personal memoirs and impressions, more than any kind of deliberate or scholarly political history, hoping that the reader will begin to appreciate another Afghanistan behind today's raucous headlines. An Alexandrian Greek who now resides in Rancho Sta. Fe, California, Julie Hill has traveled and lived all over the world as the wife of an international diplomat and on her own as indefatigable adventurer even in her senior years. This is her fifth book, following A Promise to Keep: From Athens to Afghanistan (2003), The Silk Road Revisited: Markets, Merchants and Minarets (2006) Privileged Witness; Journeys of Rediscovery (2014) and In The Afternoon Sun: My Alexandria (2017). Speaking six languages, she worked as an international telecommunications executive before retiring in Southern California.
Author: Stephen Tanner Publisher: Da Capo Press ISBN: 0786722630 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 394
Book Description
For over 2,500 years, the forbidding territory of Afghanistan has served as a vital crossroads for armies and has witnessed history-shaping clashes between civilizations: Greek, Arab, Mongol, and Tartar, and, in more recent times, British, Russian, and American. When U.S. troops entered Afghanistan in the weeks following September 11, 2001, they overthrew the Afghan Taliban regime and sent the terrorists it harbored on the run. But America's initial easy victory is in sharp contrast to the difficulties it faces today in confronting the Taliban resurgence. Originally published in 2002, Stephen Tanner's Afghanistan has now been completely updated to include the crucial turn of events since America first entered the country.
Author: David B. Edwards
Author: David B. Edwards
Author: Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef
Author: Mary Smith
Author: Jonathan Cristol
Author: David B. Edwards
Author: Malala Yousafzai
Author: Alex Strick van Linschoten
Author: Julie Hill
Author: Stephen Tanner