Join Amazon Prime and ship Two-Day for free and Overnight for $3.99. Already a member? Sign in.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
Better Together
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid  (1)
|
Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 by Steve Coll  (136)
$12.24
|
The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations by Olivier Roy  (4)
$19.80
|
The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future by Vali Nasr (87)
$6.99
|
Afghanistan: A Military History From Alexander The Great To The Fall Of The Taliban by Stephen Tanner  (11)
$12.21
|
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
In the aftermath of September 11, as Americans tried to figure out what they were up against, many of them turned to Ahmed Rashid's masterful book Taliban, the single best account of Afghanistan's murderous regime. With Jihad, Rashid offers an indispensable companion volume on five of Afghanistan's neighbors--Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan--and "the New Great Game" about to be waged over them between China, Russia, and the United States. "The vast, empty landscape dotted with oases of vibrant populations and political ferment, sitting on the world's last great untapped natural energy reserves, is almost as unknown to Westerners as it was to Europeans in the Middle Ages," writes Rashid, a Pakistani journalist with extensive experience reporting from the region. He describes the area's "growing instability," which he credits to a strain of militant Islam just like the form propagated by the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. One of the most interesting parts of Jihad concerns Juma Namangani, a shadowy rebel leader in Uzbekistan who has "cultivated an air of mystery that [is] even more extreme than that of the secretive [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar." Rashid concludes that radical Islam will remain popular in Central Asia as long as the governments there are oppressive. We ignore this part of the world at our peril, and there is no better guide to it than Rashid. --John Miller --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
As the events of September 11 showed, neglected areas of the Islamic world are feeding grounds for international terrorism. And as Rashid, author of the best-selling Taliban, shows in this important work, Islamic fundamentalism is gaining ground in Central Asia as well as it did in neighboring Afghanistan. Until 1991, the five Central Asian countries Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan were part of the Soviet Union. As Rashid discloses, the decade since then has seen a region grown increasingly despotic and impoverished, even though the countries are rich in oil. He offers brief histories of the five countries that make up Central Asia before launching into the rise of Islam. The story line Rashid skillfully weaves is relatively straightforward: Islamist groups, barely tolerated during the waning days of the U.S.S.R., experienced a revival after Communist strictures against religion were lifted. Forced to go underground as post-Communist leaders used repression to ensure their own survival, these Islamist groups "would eventually become radicalized and violent" and outsiders from the Arab world further radicalized them. The strongest group, with ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida, emerged in Uzbekistan and has been brutally repressed by President Islam Karimov. Rashid pointedly focuses on how the United States has looked the other way regarding Karimov's human rights abuses as Uzbekistan has offered support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism. Without international pressure on these regimes to follow human rights standards and end the corruption that has left the societies poor, Rashid argues that Central Asia could become the world's next tinder box. (Feb.)Forecast: Rashid has proven he deserves attention and readers. He will probably get media time, but the reading frenzy about the roots of terrorism could be waning, and this book's sales may not match those of Taliban.
See all Editorial Reviews
In the aftermath of September 11, as Americans tried to figure out what they were up against, many of them turned to Ahmed Rashid's masterful book Taliban, the single best account of Afghanistan's murderous regime. With Jihad, Rashid offers an indispensable companion volume on five of Afghanistan's neighbors--Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan--and "the New Great Game" about to be waged over them between China, Russia, and the United States. "The vast, empty landscape dotted with oases of vibrant populations and political ferment, sitting on the world's last great untapped natural energy reserves, is almost as unknown to Westerners as it was to Europeans in the Middle Ages," writes Rashid, a Pakistani journalist with extensive experience reporting from the region. He describes the area's "growing instability," which he credits to a strain of militant Islam just like the form propagated by the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. One of the most interesting parts of Jihad concerns Juma Namangani, a shadowy rebel leader in Uzbekistan who has "cultivated an air of mystery that [is] even more extreme than that of the secretive [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar." Rashid concludes that radical Islam will remain popular in Central Asia as long as the governments there are oppressive. We ignore this part of the world at our peril, and there is no better guide to it than Rashid. --John Miller --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
As the events of September 11 showed, neglected areas of the Islamic world are feeding grounds for international terrorism. And as Rashid, author of the best-selling Taliban, shows in this important work, Islamic fundamentalism is gaining ground in Central Asia as well as it did in neighboring Afghanistan. Until 1991, the five Central Asian countries Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan were part of the Soviet Union. As Rashid discloses, the decade since then has seen a region grown increasingly despotic and impoverished, even though the countries are rich in oil. He offers brief histories of the five countries that make up Central Asia before launching into the rise of Islam. The story line Rashid skillfully weaves is relatively straightforward: Islamist groups, barely tolerated during the waning days of the U.S.S.R., experienced a revival after Communist strictures against religion were lifted. Forced to go underground as post-Communist leaders used repression to ensure their own survival, these Islamist groups "would eventually become radicalized and violent" and outsiders from the Arab world further radicalized them. The strongest group, with ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida, emerged in Uzbekistan and has been brutally repressed by President Islam Karimov. Rashid pointedly focuses on how the United States has looked the other way regarding Karimov's human rights abuses as Uzbekistan has offered support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism. Without international pressure on these regimes to follow human rights standards and end the corruption that has left the societies poor, Rashid argues that Central Asia could become the world's next tinder box. (Feb.)Forecast: Rashid has proven he deserves attention and readers. He will probably get media time, but the reading frenzy about the roots of terrorism could be waning, and this book's sales may not match those of Taliban.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
|