The Punishment of Virtue: Walking the Frontline of the War on Terror with a Woman Who Has Made it Her Home - Hardcover

Chayes, Sarah

3.91

730 ratings by Goodreads

9781846270758: The Punishment of Virtue: Walking the Frontline of the War on Terror with a Woman Who Has Made it Her Home

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1846270758 ISBN 13: 9781846270758

Publisher: Portobello Books Ltd, 2007

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Readers of George Packer's "The Assassin's Gate", Asne Seierstad's "The Bookseller of Kabul", Christina Lamb's "The Sewing Cirdes of Herat", Jason Burke's "Al Qaeda", Rory Stewart's "The Plaoes In-Between", and Samantha Power's "A Problem from Hell Tribal rivalries", the bluff cunning of the warlords, the jihadist insurgents, the opium traders, the politicians and police chiefs: they all come under Chayes' unblinking gaze, and her book yields telling and mesmerizing insights into how the imperially mighty American occupiers are outwitted and outdanced at every turn by lesser forces. The dazzling villain of this story? ISI, Pakistani intelligence, to whom every other group is but a puppet.

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Review:

A gripping account of post-Taliban Afghanistan -- The Times Literary Supplement

Astute and dedicated...Her book intimately chronicles the power struggle...a deeply disquieting insight into the failures of American nation-building -- Sunday Times

Chayes' story is thrillingly told in The Punishment of Virtue...now required reading for the [NATO] officers serving [in Afghanistan]
-- Irish Times

Her astute book looks at the rot at the heart of the new regime, and flaws in the US's peace-keeping -- FT Magazine

Her evocation of the physical landscape of Afghanistan... is compelling. She has a wonderful talent.
-- The Sunday Business Post

`Chayes got up close and personal with the extraordinary world of
international power-grabbing and tribal politics... a fascinating book.' -- The Herald

`Chayes has produced a passionate, involving, important work of
journalism, informed by her independent travels in Afghanistan.' -- Steve Coll, author of 'Ghost Wars'

`I would strongly recommend this thought-provoking and salutary
book, both for those who have been involved in Afghanistan for many years
and for those who have never been there at all.' -- Literary Review

`The most gripping, sensitive, funny, perceptive and beautifully
written book you will ever read on Afghanistan, US policy and nation
building.' -- Ahmed Rashid, author of 'Taliban'

`This passionate and engaged dispatch from the field is in the
best tradition of grass-roots reporting; it is, quite simply, the best book
on Afghanistan since the invasion.'
-- Hugh Thomson, 'The Independent'

About the Author:

Born in Washington in 1962, SARAH CHAYES was working in Kandahar as a correspondent for US National Public Radio when the Taliban fell in autumn 2001. In 2002, she launched an NGO with the older brother of the Afghan President and now runs a soap co-operative in Kandahar. She was awarded the 1999 Foreign Press Club award for her news reportage. This is her first book.

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