Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia - Softcover

Rashid, Ahmed

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0300163681 ISBN 13: 9780300163681

Publisher: Yale Univ Pr, 2010

Synopsis

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About this title

Review:

Ahmed Rashid's Taliban: The story of the Afghan Warlords is the single best book available on the subject of the regime in Afghanistan responsible for harbouring the terrorist Osama bin Laden. Rashid is a Pakistani journalist who has spent most of his career reporting on the region--he has personally met and interviewed many of the Taliban's shadowy leaders. Taliban was written and published before the massacres of September 11, 2001, yet it is essential reading for anyone who hopes to understand the aftermath of that black day. It includes details on how and why the Taliban came to power, the government's oppression of ordinary citizens (especially women), the heroin trade, oil intrigue, and--in a vitally relevant chapter--bin Laden's sinister rise to power. These pages contain stories of mass slaughter, beheadings and the Taliban's crushing war against freedom: Under Mullah Omar, it has banned everything from kite flying to singing and dancing at weddings. Rashid is for the most part an objective reporter, though his rage sometimes (and understandably) comes to the surface: "The Taliban were right, their interpretation of Islam was right, and everything else was wrong and an expression of human weakness and a lack of piety", he notes with sarcasm. He has produced a compelling portrait of modern evil. --John Miller

Review:

"[A] valuable and informative work."--Richard Bernstein, New York Times (on the first edition)
"[Rashid is] Pakistan's best and bravest reporter."--Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair

"Virtually the only informed work on the men who, since 1994, have ruled almost all of Afghanistan. . . . [An] indispensable book."--Steve Wasserman, Los Angeles Times Book Review (on the first edition)

"The standard work in English on the Taliban."--Christopher de Bellaigue, New York Review of Books (on the first edition)

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale Univ Pr
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0300163681
• ISBN 13: 9780300163681
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 2
• Number of pages: 319