The Taliban: War and Religion in Afghanistan, Revised Edition [Paperback]

Peter Marsden (Author)

Book Description

Series: Politics in Contemporary Asia | Publication Date: February 9, 2002

The Taliban are yet another manifestation of the growth of radical Islam worldwide. This book explores what they stand for and the factors leading to their rapid rise to military and political dominance over Afghanistan. It considers the many influences on their ideology emanating from within the country, the Indian sub-continent and the Middle East. It describes the war which continues to afflict the Afghan people as well as the geo-political context and the possible part played by certain powers in the region, and by the United States, in the Taliban’s dramatic expansion. Peter Marsden examines the unique and complicated character of an Islamic revivalist movement like the Taliban. He confronts the issue of international responsibility in situations of chronic conflict brought on by external interference, and considers the dilemmas faced by humanitarian agencies in seeking to reconcile the evident need for assistance with the often difficult political and human rights context in which they are working. He examines the cultural conflict between Western thinking and the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic values, particularly in relation to gender, and asks how the international community should deal with this conflict.

Editorial Reviews

Review

". . .succinctly reviews Afghanistan's history and complex ethnic and linguistic map, then situates the rise of the Taliban. . ." -- Margaret A.Mills, The New York Times

About the Author

Peter Marsden is Information Coordinator of the British Agencies Afghanistan Group and is Research Associate of Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Zed Books; Revised edition (February 9, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1842771671
• ISBN-13: 978-1842771679
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #362,882 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Painfully dry and leftist... but still worth a quick read, June 18, 2007

By 

Cindy Stevens - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Taliban: War and Religion in Afghanistan, Revised Edition (Paperback)

Marsden does a fair job in providing an abbreviated history of how the Taliban came to power following the bitter Soviet occupation and subsequent failed Mujahidin government, exploring the soul of the movement and its aspirations to reestablish a sense of purity that its leaders perceived had been absent for too long.

The author makes clear that the Taliban never truly had any sort of imperialistic ambitions of spreading its power or creed outside its borders, and that despite their shortcomings, the Kandahar-based movement acted as an effective stablizing force that brought order to the region. Unfortunately, Marsden arguably goes too far in his absolution of blame on the part of the Taliban regime, and falls back on the argument that the United States is ultimately to blame for the sorry state of affairs leading up to the October 2001 US military intervention. According to Marsden, US foreign policy, which sometimes used the UN as a proxy, inevitably created an increasingly radical Taliban. Instead of the usage of airstrikes or the hunting of terrorists hiding within Afghanistan, the United States apparently should have considered taking a more carefully measured "legal" approach.

Having spent my fair share of time in Afghanistan, it is clear that this country can only be controlled by one method: Force. The idea that the international community could have talked things over with the Taliban and establish fruitful dialogue via diplomatic channels is unlikely at best. As for the argument that the Taliban is blowback from covert US support of the Mujahidin during the Soviet occupation, I would say that it is moreso a result of a hopelessly corrupt Pakistani intelligence mechanism that misspent US funds while pursuing its own agenda. Besides, the Saudi government along with Islamic NGOs (think Bin Laden) were pouring just as much, if not more, money into the war effort at that time.

With that said, this is still a book on Afghanistan that is worth the read.

3 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The USA IS responsible for the creation of the Taliban and 911, July 27, 2006

By 

C. Jessop - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Taliban: War and Religion in Afghanistan, Revised Edition (Paperback)

You are obviously not educated, or educated by fox news if you are bashing this book because it blames the USA for creating the Taliban and then the 911 attacks.
Your problem is no knowledge- the USA CIA DID CREATE THE TALIBAN.
USA is complicit in a number of events and in some cases directly funded the people that were responsible for 911.
The rest of the info is hidden and destroyed under the false pretense of national security or we could show so many facts that it could even be spoon fed to you by fox news and the republican sugar coating would still let the taste of the truth seep through.

I highly suggest you read more books on this topic- maybe you will realize after a while that we had a war by proxy with russia via the taliban, our good friends who we handpicked from Pakistan- they weren't even Afghanis!!

2 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Not worth your while, read Rashid's book instead, April 26, 2005

By 

Bruce MacNeil - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Taliban: War and Religion in Afghanistan, Revised Edition (Paperback)

Marsden does an adequate job in providing an overview of Afghanistan's history and cultural/religious make-up. But that's about the extent of positive remarks I can make about the book.

From then, Marsden slides easily into anti-Western--more specifically anti-US--criticisms, essentially blaming the US and the West for the rise of the Taliban and the terrorist attacks of 9/11. From Marsden's cliche cultural relativist view, the US should have tried to understand and engage the Taliban rather than confront them or to expect them to adopt international standards of behavior. He goes further to blame the US for driving the Taliban and al-Qa'ida closer together by retaliating for the 1998 embassy bombings in Africe, ignoring the fact that by that time al-Qa'ida had already forged a tight relationship, with Osama Bin Laden providing the Taliban with Arab shock troops to prop up the movement. More galling is Marsden's claims that the US rushed to judgment in blaming the 1998 embassy bombings, the 2000 USS Cole attack, and 9/11 on Bin Laden with little evidence to support such claims. There was in fact plenty of evidence made publicly. Marsden claims that the US used "Osama Bin Laden as a hate figure to enable it to pursue wider economic and political goals." (p. 152)

Furthermore, Marsden paints the Taliban almost as misunderstood and well-meaning folks who have been given a bad rap because of the cruel actions of some of their "footsoldiers" as Marsden calls them. This is a poor reflection of reality; while some actions probably were carried out independently by Taliban fighters many atrocities were carried out with the full knowledge and at least tacit approval of the Taliban leadership, as other writers observe. He glosses over the ethnic cleansing and torture practiced by the Taliban, urged on by the movement's leaders and its supporters in Pakistan. He scarcely mentions the devastating poverty and starvation inflicted on Afghan widows by Taliban decrees. Moreover, he vastly overestimates their popularity within Afghanistan, the lack of which was obvious by their swift collapse in the fall of 2001. Even more startling is Marsden's general inattention to the degree of influence and support received by the Taliban from parties within Pakistan. Marsden also fails to note that the Taliban profitted handsomely from the drug trade and illicit smuggling; opium production actually increased in many areas under Taliban rule because they did not mind opium being exported to infidels in other countries, as many writers have astutely observed. Finally, Marsden also gives little attention to the tight relationship between the Taliban and Islamic terrorist groups that it permitted to operate freely from Afghanistan.

What I find interesting is that none of Marsden's warnings about how US military action in Afghanistan (which had just began at the time of his writing the book) would backfire came to pass. Neither Afghans or Pakistanis rose up in droves to povide thousands of volunteers to offset Taliban losses nor did it produce another generation of people seeking martyrdom against the US or the West. The Taliban and their extremist allies now have little support in Afhanistan.

For those who want a more insightful and better researched look at the Taliban read Ahmed Rashid's book.