In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan PDF Download

Author: Seth G. Jones
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393338517
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
"Following the September 11 attacks, the United States successfully overthrew the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The U.S. established security throughout the country--killing, capturing, or scattering most of al Qa'ida's senior operatives--and Afghanistan finally began to emerge from more than two decades of struggle and conflict. But Jones argues that as early as 2001, planning for the Iraq War siphoned resources and personnel, undermining the gains that had been made. Jones introduces us to key figures on both sides of the war. He then analyzes the insurgency from a historical and structural point of view, showing how a rising drug trade, poor security forces, and pervasive corruption undermined the Karzai government, while Americans abandoned a successful strategy, failed to provide the necessary support, and allowed a growing sanctuary for insurgents in Pakistan to catalyze the Taliban resurgence"--From publisher.

Author: Sam Sykes
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0316363464
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 679

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Book Description
An outcast mage caught between two warring empires must either save the world or destroy everything she loves in the second novel of "an unforgettable epic fantasy" trilogy (Publishers Weekly). Sal the Cacophony -- outlaw, outcast, outnumbered -- destroys all that she loves. Her lover lost and cities burned in her wake, all she has left is her magical gun and her all-consuming quest for revenge against those who stole her power and took the sky from her. When the roguish agent of a mysterious patron offers her the chance to participate in a heist to steal an incredible power from the famed airship fleet, the Ten Arrows, she finds a new purpose. But a plot to save the world by bringing down empires swiftly escalates into a conspiracy of magic and vengeance that threatens to burn everything to ash, including herself. For more from Sam Sykes, check out: The Grave of Empires:Seven Blades in BlackTen Arrows of Iron Bring Down Heaven:The City Stained RedThe Mortal TallyGod's Last Breath The Affinity for Steel Trilogy:Tome of the UndergatesBlack HaloThe Skybound Sea

Author: John A. Tyler
Publisher: Aries Consolidated LLC
ISBN: 138768356X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 123

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Book Description
During the spring and summer of 2021, global news reports were filled with the impending US/NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan. At best, it would be viewed as a stalemate, with an orderly transition to a stable, US-backed Afghan government. At worse, it would be looked upon as two decades of futile war, ending with a shameful retreat that left the county at the mercy of a ruthless Taliban regime. What went wrong? This close look at the history of foreign invasions of the country, from Alexander the Great to the US/NATO occupation, gives insight into the geographical and cultural reasons this land, in the valley of the Hindu Kush mountain range, has long earned the sobriquet: Graveyard of Empires.

Author: Sam Sykes
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0316363456
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 611

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Book Description
Acclaimed author Sam Sykes returns with a brilliant new epic fantasy that introduces an unforgettable outcast mage caught between two warring empires. Her magic was stolen. She was left for dead. Betrayed by those she trusts most and her magic ripped from her, all Sal the Cacophony has left is her name, her story, and the weapon she used to carve both. But she has a will stronger than magic, and knows exactly where to go. The Scar, a land torn between powerful empires, where rogue mages go to disappear, disgraced soldiers go to die and Sal went with a blade, a gun, and a list of seven names. Revenge will be its own reward.

Author: Thomas Barfield
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691154414
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
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: Gregory Fremont-Barnes
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1472810082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 144

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Book Description
During the 19th century Britain entered into three brutal wars with Afghanistan, each one saw the British trying and failing to gain control of a warlike and impenetrable territory. The first two wars (1839–42 and 1878–81) were wars of the Great Game; the British Empire's attempts to combat growing Russian influence near India's borders. The third, fought in 1919, was an Afghan-declared holy war against British India – in which over 100,000 Afghans answered the call, and raised a force that would prove too great for the British Imperial army. Each of the three wars were plagued by military disasters, lengthy sieges and costly engagements for the British, and history has proved the Afghans a formidable foe and their country unconquerable. This book reveals the history of these three Anglo-Afghan wars, the imperial power struggles that led to conflict and the torturous experiences of the men on the ground. The book concludes with a brief overview of the background to today's conflict in Afghanistan, and sketches the historical parallels.

Author: Ali Ahmad Jalali
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700624074
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 634

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Book Description
The history of Afghanistan is largely military history. From the Persians and Greeks of antiquity to the British, Soviet, and American powers in modern times, outsiders have led military conquests into the mountains and plains of Afghanistan, leaving their indelible marks on this ancient land at the juncture of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In this book Ali Ahmad Jalali, a former interior minister of Afghanistan, taps a deep understanding of his country's distant and recent past to explore Afghanistan's military history during the last two hundred years. With an introductory chapter highlighting the major military developments from early times to the foundation of the modern Afghan state, Jalali's account focuses primarily on the era of British conquest and Anglo-Afghan wars; the Soviet invasion; the civil war and the rise of the Taliban; and the subsequent U.S. invasion. Looking beyond persistent stereotypes and generalizations—e.g., the "graveyard of empires" designation emerging from the Anglo-Afghan wars of the 19th century and the Soviet experience of the 1980s—Jalali offers a nuanced and comprehensive portrayal of the way of war pursued by both state and non-state actors in Afghanistan against different domestic and foreign enemies, under changing social, political, and technological conditions. He reveals how the structure of states, tribes, and social communities in Afghanistan, along with the scope of their controlled space, has shaped their modes of fighting throughout history. In particular, his account shows how dynastic wars and foreign conquests differ in principle, strategy, and method from wars initiated by non-state actors including tribal and community militias against foreign invasions or repressive government. Written by a professional soldier, politician, and noted scholar with a keen analytical grasp of his country's military and political history, this magisterial work offers unique insight into the military history of Afghanistan—and thus, into Afghanistan itself.

Author: Sam Sykes
Publisher: Orbit
ISBN: 0316363596
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
A standalone epic fantasy novella starring Sal the Cacophony, who Pierce Brown called a "protagonist for the ages," from Sam Sykes' widely acclaimed Seven Blades in Black. To the city of Last Word, one of the last freeholds in a land rent asunder by magic, Sal the Cacophony comes with gun, a blade, and a burning need for revenge. But when the gallows threatens to deny her the satisfaction of the kill, Sal the Cacophony decides to free her query -- it's the principle of the thing. And in doing so, she sparks a war that will shake the city's fragile peace to its core. To escape with her life and her kill, she'll have to save a criminal-turned-companion: a Freemaker, versed in the forbidden arts of magic and machinery. But the weight of their secrets may be too heavy to let them escape in one piece. For more from Sam Sykes, check out: The Grave of EmpiresSeven Blades in Black The Affinity for Steel TrilogyTome of the UndergatesBlack HaloThe Skybound Sea Bring Down HeavenThe City Stained RedThe Mortal TallyGod's Last Breath

Author: Mark Sable
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781607067399
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Afghanistan. U.S. Marines face a never-ending onslaught of Taliban. But even hell can get worse. The dead are coming back to life in The Graveyard of Empires, and only together can both sides of the today's conflict survive tomorrow's undead assault. Writer Mark Sable (Unthinkable, Two-Face Year One) reunites with his Grounded co-creator, Paul Azaceta (Amazing Spider-Man) to tell this critically claimed, controversial tale of terror.

Author: William Dalrymple
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307958299
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 494

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Book Description
From William Dalrymple—award-winning historian, journalist and travel writer—a masterly retelling of what was perhaps the West’s greatest imperial disaster in the East, and an important parable of neocolonial ambition, folly and hubris that has striking relevance to our own time. With access to newly discovered primary sources from archives in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Russia and India—including a series of previously untranslated Afghan epic poems and biographies—the author gives us the most immediate and comprehensive account yet of the spectacular first battle for Afghanistan: the British invasion of the remote kingdom in 1839. Led by lancers in scarlet cloaks and plumed helmets, and facing little resistance, nearly 20,000 British and East India Company troops poured through the mountain passes from India into Afghanistan in order to reestablish Shah Shuja ul-Mulk on the throne, and as their puppet. But after little more than two years, the Afghans rose in answer to the call for jihad and the country exploded into rebellion. This First Anglo-Afghan War ended with an entire army of what was then the most powerful military nation in the world ambushed and destroyed in snowbound mountain passes by simply equipped Afghan tribesmen. Only one British man made it through. But Dalrymple takes us beyond the bare outline of this infamous battle, and with penetrating, balanced insight illuminates the uncanny similarities between the West’s first disastrous entanglement with Afghanistan and the situation today. He delineates the straightforward facts: Shah Shuja and President Hamid Karzai share the same tribal heritage; the Shah’s principal opponents were the Ghilzai tribe, who today make up the bulk of the Taliban’s foot soldiers; the same cities garrisoned by the British are today garrisoned by foreign troops, attacked from the same rings of hills and high passes from which the British faced attack. Dalryrmple also makes clear the byzantine complexity of Afghanistan’s age-old tribal rivalries, the stranglehold they have on the politics of the nation and the ways in which they ensnared both the British in the nineteenth century and NATO forces in the twenty-first. Informed by the author’s decades-long firsthand knowledge of Afghanistan, and superbly shaped by his hallmark gifts as a narrative historian and his singular eye for the evocation of place and culture, The Return of a King is both the definitive analysis of the First Anglo-Afghan War and a work of stunning topicality.