Shantaram: A Novel by Gregory David Roberts

"It took me a long time and most of the world more...0 points

"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured."So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear.Accompanied by his guide a...0 points

Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriguez, Kristin Ohlson

Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Debor more...0 points

Soon after the fall of the Taliban, in 2001, Deborah Rodriguez went to Afghanistan as part of a group offering humanitarian aid to this war-torn nation. Surrounded by men and women whose skills-as doctors, nurses, and therapists-seemed eminently more practical than her own, Rodriguez, a hairdresser and mother of two from Michigan, despaired of being of any real use. Yet she soon found she had a gift for befriending Afghans, and once her profession became known she was eagerly sought ou...0 points

The Places In Between by Rory Stewart

In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghani more...0 points

In January 2002 Rory Stewart walked across Afghanistan-surviving by his wits, his knowledge of Persian dialects and Muslim customs, and the kindness of strangers. By day he passed through mountains covered in nine feet of snow, hamlets burned and emptied by the Taliban, and communities thriving amid the remains of medieval civilizations. By night he slept on villagers' floors, shared their meals, and listened to their stories of the recent and ancient past. Along the way Stewart met heroes and r...0 points

Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll

To what extent did America's best intelligence ana more...0 points

To what extent did America's best intelligence analysts grasp the rising threat of Islamist radicalism? Who tried to stop bin Laden and why did they fail? Comprehensively and for the first time, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Steve Coll recounts the history of the covert wars in Afghanistan that fueled Islamic militancy and sowed the seeds of the September 11 attacks. Based on scrupulous research and firsthand accounts by key government, intelligence, and military personnel both for...0 points

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

For more than twenty years, Sultan Khan has defied more...0 points

For more than twenty years, Sultan Khan has defied the authorities, whether communist or Taliban, to supply books to the people of Kabul. He has been arrested, interrogated, and imprisoned, and has watched illiterate Taliban soldiers burn piles of his books in the street. Yet he has persisted in his passion for books, shedding light in one of the world's darkest places. This is the intimate portrait of a man of principle and of his family - two wives, five children, and many relatives sharing a....0 points

The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban by Sarah Chayes

A National Public Radio reporter covering the last more...0 points

A National Public Radio reporter covering the last stand of the Taliban in their home base of Kandahar in Afghanistan's southern borderland, Sarah Chayes became deeply immersed in the unfolding drama of the attempt to rebuild a broken nation at the crossroads of the world's destiny. Her NPR tour up in early 2002, she left reporting to help turn the country's fortunes, accepting a job running a nonprofit founded by President Hamid Karzai's brother. With remarkable access to leading players in the...0 points

Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan (Columbia/Hurst) by Antonio Giustozzi

Since the Allied invasion of Afghanistan in 2002, more...0 points

Since the Allied invasion of Afghanistan in 2002, the Bush administration has celebrated the imminent demise of the Taliban, with claims of a "moral and psychological defeat" playing a prominent role in the presidential elections of 2004. Some commentators suggested that "reconstruction and development" had won over the Afghan population, despite widespread criticism of the meager distribution of aid and failed attempts at "nation building," not to mention the infamous corruption of Kabul's powe...

Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban by Stephen Tanner

The only complete single-volume military history o more...0 points

The only complete single-volume military history of Afghanistan, from ancient times to the war waged by the United States after September 11.

Following the events of September 11, 2001, the world was riveted as American military power contested the legendary warrior culture of Afghanistan. By spring 2002, America began to draw down its forces, its mission accomplished: The Afghan Taliban regime has been overthrown and the terrorists it harbored were on the run. Was America's easy victory proof o...

The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan

The Taliban remain one of the most elusive forces more...0 points

The Taliban remain one of the most elusive forces in modern history. A ragtag collection of clerics and madrasa students, this obscure movement emerged out of the rubble of the Cold War to shock the world with their draconian Islamic order. The Taliban refused to surrender their vision even when confronted by the United States after September 11, 2001. Reinventing themselves as part of a broad insurgency that destabilized Afghanistan, they pledged to drive out the Americans, NATO, and their all...

Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics by Martin Ewans

A fascinating chronicle of a nation's turbulent h more...0 points

A fascinating chronicle of a nation's turbulent history and a must read for anyone interested in the historical evolution of one of today's most dangerous breeding grounds of global terrorism.

Starting in seventh century AD, Martin Ewans shows Afghanistan's early days - of powerful dynasties, fierce tribal rivalries and stunning architectural feats. In Ewans%u07ECucid and dispassionate prose, a once powerful empire is revealed, whose traditions and political stability have over the years....