An account of the 1929 uprising in Kabul. During the occupation Fayz Muhammad, a Kabul resident and historian, kept a detailed journal, which forms the basis of this book. It covers the occupiers' extortion, confiscation, and the resulting hardships, as well as the actions of those who resisted.
In this book, based on field work undertaken in Afghanistan itself and through engagement with postcolonial theory, Bojan Savic critiques western intervention in Afghanistan by showing how its casting of Afghan natives as “dangerous” has created a power network which fractures the country – in echoes of 19th and 20th century colonial powers in the region. Savic also offers an analysis of how and by what means global security priorities have affected Afghan lives.
In Embassies Under Siege, eyewitnesses present nine representative crises in vivid detail, examining the recurring challenges posed to diplomatic missions. The authors, all career Foreign Service officers, provide more than just frightening firsthand accounts of vulnerable people facing great peril. They also suggest useful lessons for protecting diplomatic personnel abroad. Many of these suggestions have already been implemented, and as old problems continue and new crises develop, the lessons learned from these cases prove invaluable. Through stories of great physical courage, professionalism, and resourcefulness, Embassies Under Siege paints a clear picture of the unique type of individual serving in the Foreign Service today.
In this gripping collection of first-hand accounts, Ian Knight presents the adventure of nineteenth-century warfare from the thrill of the cavalry charges at Balaklava and Omdurman, to the terror of battle against an overwhelming odds such as Rorke's Drift in the words of the men actually there.These eyewitness accounts provide a vivid and sometimes shocking insight into the brutal realities of warfare for the British imperial soldier, who fought against enemies from massed ranks of Russians and assegai-armed natives to sharp-shooting Boers, in often the most terrible conditions imaginable.These stirring tales of military adventure have been edited by Ian Knight and brought together and published in book form. Originally featured in turn-of-the-century magazine, popular during the heyday of empire, these historically valuable accounts throw considerable light on campaign conditions during Queen Victoria's colonial wars.Marching to the Drums includes accounts focusing on the experience of battle during such pivotal conflicts as the Sikh Wars, the Crimean War, the Afghan Wars, the Anglo-Zulu War, and those in China, the Sudan and South Africa.
The Sir?j al-taw?r?kh is the most important history of Afghanistan ever written. This pinnacle of the rich Afghan historiographic tradition is available in English translation, annotated, fully indexed, including an introduction, eight appendices, Persian-English and English-Persian glossaries, and bibliography.
A Washington Post Best Book of 2021 The #1 New York Times bestselling investigative story of how three successive presidents and their military commanders deceived the public year after year about America’s longest war, foreshadowing the Taliban’s recapture of Afghanistan, by Washington Post reporter and three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Craig Whitlock. Unlike the wars in Vietnam and Iraq, the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 had near-unanimous public support. At first, the goals were straightforward and clear: defeat al-Qaeda and prevent a repeat of 9/11. Yet soon after the United States and its allies removed the Taliban from power, the mission veered off course and US officials lost sight of their original objectives. Distracted by the war in Iraq, the US military become mired in an unwinnable guerrilla conflict in a country it did not understand. But no president wanted to admit failure, especially in a war that began as a just cause. Instead, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations sent more and more troops to Afghanistan and repeatedly said they were making progress, even though they knew there was no realistic prospect for an outright victory. Just as the Pentagon Papers changed the public’s understanding of Vietnam, The Afghanistan Papers contains “fast-paced and vivid” (The New York Times Book Review) revelation after revelation from people who played a direct role in the war from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines. In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government. All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground. Documents unearthed by The Washington Post reveal that President Bush didn’t know the name of his Afghanistan war commander—and didn’t want to meet with him. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had “no visibility into who the bad guys are.” His successor, Robert Gates, said: “We didn’t know jack shit about al-Qaeda.” The Afghanistan Papers is a “searing indictment of the deceit, blunders, and hubris of senior military and civilian officials” (Tom Bowman, NRP Pentagon Correspondent) that will supercharge a long-overdue reckoning over what went wrong and forever change the way the conflict is remembered.
An award-winning foreign correspondent who contributed to a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times series reveals the secret Afghan custom of disguising girls as boys to improve their prospects, discussing its political and social significance as well as the experiences of its practitioners.
This is an account of the occupiers extortio n, confiscation, and resulting hardships, as well as the act ions of those who resisted, is a timely reminder of the dram a being played out in Afghanistan today. '
The fourth volume of the J. Paul Getty Trust Occasional Papers in Cultural Heritage Policy series is the result of a multi-day discussion on the issue of cultural heritage under siege. It features an edited collection of papers and discussions by nineteen scholars and practitioners of different specialties in the field of cultural heritage. This paper, along with the other Occasional Papers, is free and downloadable online.
MJ Akbar is among those who have made a significant impact on Indian society by their writing, whether as authors or editors. Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the seminal newsmagazine, Sunday, in 1976 and The Telegraph in 1982, he revolutionized Indian journalism in the 1970s and 80s. In the 1990s he launched The Asian Age, a multi-edition daily that once again had substantive impact on the profession. He has also served as the Editorial Director of India Today, Headlines Today and as the editor of the Deccan Chronicle and the Sunday Guardian. MJ, as he is popularly known, first entered public life in 1989, when he was elected to the Lok Sabha. He went back to media in 1993 and returned to the political area in 2014, when he joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and became the party’s national spokesperson during the 2014 campaign led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. In July 2016, he was named the Minister of State for External Affairs by Prime Minister Modi. His seven books have achieved great international acclaim: India: The Siege Within; Nehru: The Making of India; Riot-after-Riot; Kashmir: Behind the Vale; The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict between Islam and Christianity, Tinderbox: The Past and Future of Pakistan and Blood Brothers, his only work of fiction. In addition, there have been four collections of his columns, reportage and essays.