Category: Afghanistan
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The Silk Roads: A New History of the World (2015) by Peter Frankopan
Western civilization – and, by extension, much of world history – is often presented as a seamless chain of causally linked events stretching back to antiquity. In its simplest form, the narrative runs like this: Ancient Greece gave rise to Imperial Rome; Rome shaped Christian Europe; Christian Europe produced the Renaissance, which sparked the Enlightenment…
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The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (1990) by Peter Hopkirk
In the annals of imperial history, few conflicts have captured the imagination quite like the Great Game – that shadowy, century-long struggle between the British and Russian empires for dominance over Central Asia. Peter Hopkirk’s masterful work, “The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia” (1990), stands as the definitive account of this…
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Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan (2012) by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
I am a Navy reservist and served as one of the primary economic development officers at NATO’s Regional Command – South headquarters in Kandahar from September 2009 to September 2010. Thus it was with more than passing interest that I read Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s recent journalistic expose, “Little America: The War within the War for Afghanistan,”…
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Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-89 (2011) by Rodric Braithwaite
Before I deployed to Afghanistan in 2009 I read everything I could about the country and its fascinating, but remarkably violent history. I was particularly interested to learn more about the Soviet experience. However, there was precious little to be found outside of some War College books that were insightful but lacked an overall narrative…
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War Comes to Garmser: Thirty Years of Conflict on the Afghan Frontier (2013) by Carter Malkasian
I deployed to southern Afghanistan in late 2009, roughly the same time that Carter Malkasian arrived as the lead political officer in Garmser in Helmand Province. It was just the beginning of the so-called “Obama Surge” into Afghanistan and the situation in many areas in southern Afghanistan – Helmand Province in particular – was bleak.…
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