Book Review: Decoding the New Taliban, Antonio Giustozzi editor

by Asher Kohn

I’m usually pretty hestitant to give wholehearted “Read This Book” recommendation to anything. But read this book. Giustozzzi has taken time away from writing two books to edit this collection. I really like what he did. He got 12 writers (plus himself) to come together and have everyone write 15-40 pages about their focus in [...]

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What’s the Narrative?

by Asher Kohn

There’s a weird dichotomy between the Orientalizing and Occidentalizing influences of popular (read: non-academic) works on Central Asia. The Kite Runner is probably the most popular of pop history, but it is basically a story of the success of capitalism by infantilizing Afghans, as Matt Miller can say better than me: The most pernicious element [...]

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Holiday Reading Open Thread

by Matthew Kuhl

The semester is winding down here in middle Georgia, and that, of course, means that I have about a month’s worth of not much to do. Therefore, I turn to you good folks here for some suggestions on what to read. I’m looking for some papers/articles/books about Central Asia. What have you read recently that [...]

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Book review: The Great Gamble by Gregory Feifer

by Julia Mahlejd

I wish Gregory Feifer had written The Great Gamble: The Soviet War in Afghanistan before Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars. It would have seemed a lot more insightful and compelling then. Perhaps it’s a slightly unfair comparison because the former is about the Soviet side of the conflict and the latter is about the American side. [...]

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And by opposing end them?

by Sailani

With the White House admirably standing in for Elsinore castle of late, we are nevertheless  inching closer to a decision on Gen. McChrystal’s request for additional troops.  The lobbying from all sides continues and while there are many uncomfortable dynamics about the lengthy deliberations, at least we are finally seeing a healthy debate about the [...]

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Talking In the Graveyard of Empires with Seth Jones.

by Joshua Foust

Today, at 5 p.m. EST, I’m going to be hosting a book salon chat with Seth Jones at the blog collective FireDogLake, over his new book In the Graveyard of Empires: America’s War in Afghanistan. Just click on the link, register for an account, and come join the discussion! He’ll be answering questions for two [...]

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Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and Al Qaeda, by Gretchen Peters

by Joshua Foust

It’s probably best to skip the first 130 pages of this book. That’s how long it takes Ms. Peters, who claims to be passionately involved in telling this story, to even begin to discuss the ways in which opium-based corruption has distorted the Afghan government in far more pernicious ways than merely fueling an insurgency. [...]

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Gauging Obama’s “Af-Pak” Experts

by Joshua Foust

(This week I’m guest-blogging for Spencer Ackerman, who introduced me very amusingly. This is my first post for him.) My friend Alex Strick van Linschoten, who is one of the only independent journalists living in Kandahar full-time, posted a review of Bruce Riedel’s book, In Search of Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology and Future. Riedel [...]

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Taking Lessons From Just North

by Joshua Foust

I don’t have $130 to spend on it, but John Heathershaw’s new book, Post-Conflict Tajikistan: The politics of peacebuilding and the emergence of legitimate order certainly looks interesting. From the abstract: Post-Soviet, post-conflict Tajikistan is an under-studied and poorly understood case in conflict studies literature. Since 2000, this Central Asian state has seen major political [...]

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A Curious Spat Over Russian Expat Journalism

by Joshua Foust

Steve LeVine’s last book, Putin’s Labyrinth: Spies, Murder, and the Dark Heart of the New Russia—very favorably reviewed in this space—took a very thorough drubbing in the Virginia Quarterly Review by journalist Stephen Boykewich. What were LeVine’s crimes? The logical question would seem to be what LeVine’s book, which weighs in at a mere 166 [...]

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