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Trying to better understand politics, unfamiliar cultures, world religion, the history of the Middle East, or U.S. foreign policy? How can you sift through the thousands of books on these subjects? Here is a selection of noteworthy books on the Soviet-Afghan War, Afghanistan, The Middle East, the History of the Arab World, Islam, and Terrorism to get you started. Gary Bowersox and Bonita Chamberlin PhD.
 Gemstones of Afghanistan. Click to read description of Bonita's book.
Ajami, Fouad, The Dream Palace of the Arabs, Vintage, paperback.
Ajami shows how the 20th -century push for modernism and secularism in the Middle East came to grief with the rise of militant fundamentalism.
Alexander Yonah, Michael S. Swetnam Usama bin Laden’s al-Qaida: Profile of a Terrorist Network.
The al-Qaida informal and loose international network in over 50 countries has been responsible for spectacular terrorist operations such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York, the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in East Africa, and is apparently linked to the attack of the destroyer USS Cole in Aden, Yemen, in 2000.Armstrong, Karen, Islam : A Short History Modern Library, hardcover.
A brief, straightforward introduction to the history, culture and beliefs of Islam.
Arnold, Anthony, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Perspective (Stanford, 1985).
Bahmanyar, Mir and Ian Palmer Afghanistan Cave Complexes, 1979-2004: Mountain strongholds of the Mujahideen, Taliban & Al Qaeda
Bergen, Peter L. Holy War, Inc.: Inside The Secret World of Osama Bin Laden
One of only a handful of Western journalists to have interviewed the world’s most wanted man face to face, Peter Bergen has produced the definitive book on the Jihadist network that operates globally and in secrecy. In the course of four years of investigative reporting, he has interviewed scores of insiders -- from bin Laden associates and family members to Taliban leaders to CIA officials -- and traveled to Afghanistan, Yemen, Egypt, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom to learn the truth about bin Laden’s al Queda organization and his mission.
Borovik, Artyom, The Hidden War, Grove, paperback. The late Russian journalist supplies a brilliant look at what happened the last time a world power (the Soviet Union in its twilight) tried to invade Afghanistan.
Carew, Tom Jihad! The account by a former SAS soldier of his training and fighting with the mujahideen during the Soviet Occupation of Afghanistan. It shows what the British and American troups will be facing in Afghanistan.
Coll, Steve Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001
Cooley, John K. Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism
Cooley’s important and timely book examines ‘a strange love-affair that went disastrously wrong,’ the alliance between America and ‘some of the most conservative and fanatical followers of Islam.’ To my knowledge, it is the first on this theme....the author [is] a well-regarded Middle East correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor and more recently for ABC News.... ‘Unholy Wars’ asks salient questions and draws on an impressive body of sources.
Cordovez, Diego and Harrison, Selig, Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal (New York, 1995)
Crile, George Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in HistoryDennis, Anthony J. Osama Bin Laden: A Psychological and Political Portrait
OSAMA BIN LADEN: A Psychological and Political Portrait” answers crucial questions concerning bin Laden’s motivations and his larger political vision. The product of over five years of research, this readable volume provides a rare window on bin Laden’s mental landscape and a deeper understanding of the most notorious mass murderer of the present age.
Dennis, Anthony J. The Rise of the Islamic Empire and the Threat to the West
This book, based on the premise that fundamentalist Islam will, by the end of the 1990s, threaten world peace and ‘the very survival of the human species,’ discusses the transformation of Islam from a religious to a revolutionary movement..... The author contends that, in its present form, Islam is used by political dictators to justify their quest for power..... The correspondence of these internal and external events leads Dennis to conclude that ‘while the Soviet Empire was breaking up and dying worldwide, another empire founded upon another set of ideals was just being born.’ Stressing the danger posed by Islamic fundamentalism, Dennis remarks that ‘since the early days of the Islamic revolution inside Iran, the threat of fundamentalist Islam to world peace and human progress and advancement has only grown larger.
Dewar, Michael, Weapons and Equipment of Counter-Terrorism - The war against terrorism is an ongoing battle fought around the world. Hundreds of photographs, all with descriptive text, offer a detailed look at international security vehicles, helicopters, bomb disposal and detection equipment, anti-riot material, body armor, surveillance tools, communication and data processing equipment, and more.
Duncan, Andrew and Michael Dangerous Destinations: The Essential Guide to the World's Trouble Spots The history and reasons for the many trouble spots around the world. The book devotes an interesting and well written section explaining the troubles in Afghanistan. The book includes warnings of areas of future confrontation.
Dupree, Louis Afghanistan A simply titled text with a lofty price tag -- $140 for a hardcover edition on Amazon.com. The 1973 volume has become “a standard” in the field, “the best cultural history of the Afghan people” providing a “historical and social background”.Dwyer, Jim, Murphy, Deidre, Tyre, Peg, Kocieniewski, David, Two Seconds Under the World, Crown, hardcover. New York Newsday’s Pulitzer-prize winning team (Tyre is now a writer at NEWSWEEK) walks you through practically every second of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, the subsequent investigation and the trial, and, along the way, asks plenty of hard questions about how such a thing could happen—questions that need answering now more than ever.
Elliot, Jason An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan This book describes the author’s astounding travels in Afghanistan: his teenage experiences with the mujahiddeen in their campaigns against the Soviets, and his later experiences when traveling north to war-torn Kabul.
Ellis, Deborah Parvana’s JourneyEsposito, John L., Islam: The Straight Path - Esposito provides a succinct, up-to-date survey of the Islamic experience, giving readers a solid understanding of the faith, belief, and practice of Islam from its origins to the present.
Evans, Martin Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics
Fernea, Elizabeth Warnock, Guests of the Sheik, Anchor, paperback. While her husband, a social anthropologist, was researching his doctorate in Iraq, Fernea spent two years living with Iraqi women and as an Iraqi woman. Her behind-the-scenes look at the emerging role for women in the Middle East is often surprising and always well written.
Follett, Ken Lie Down With Lions
Friedman, Thomas L., The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Anchor, paperback. Arguing that, in the wake of the Cold War, globalization is the dominant force in world events and the most divisive, Friedman explicates the tensions that underlie and provoke current hostilities.
Friedman, Thomas L., From Beirut to Jerusalem - Winner of the 1989 National Book Award for nonfiction, this extraordinary bestseller is still the most incisive, thought-provoking book ever written about the Middle East. “If you’re only going to read one book on the Middle East, this is it.”
Fuller, Graham, Islamic Fundamentalism in Afghanistan: Its Character and Prospects
Furst, Alan The Book of Spies: An Anthology of Literary Espionage
Girardet, Edward Afghanistan: Crosslines Essential Field Guides to Humanitarian and Conflict Zones
Goodwin, Jan, Caught in the Crossfire: A Woman Journalist’s Breathtaking Experiences in War Torn Afghanistan - From an award-winning journalist and human rights activist, this book focuses on the conflict in Afghanistan. Find out how the editor of Ladies’ Home Journal came to campaign with the Mujahiden.Griffen, Michael, Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan, Hardcover
Halberstam, David, War in a Time of Peace, Scribner, hardcover. Tracing the impulses of Clinton, the military and the State Department back to Vietnam, Halberstam paints a picture of American foreign policy in the 1990s that amounts to ad hoc fitfulness. This is a fascinating primer on the current situation.
Hamill, Pete Forever: A Novel
Hammond, Thomas, Red Flag over Afghanistan: The Communist coup, the Soviet Invasion and the Consequences (Boulder, 1984).
Hosseini, Khaled The Kite Runner
Hourani, Albert, A History of the Arab Peoples - Encyclopedic and panoramic in its scope, this fascinating work chronicles the rich spiritual, political, and cultural institutions of Arab history through 13 centuries.
Huband, Mark Warriors of the Prophet: The Struggle for Islam
More than ever, it has become imperative for the West to understand the Arab world. Warriors of the Prophet chronicles Osama bin Laden’s ascent to power during the Islamic Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Author Mark Huband reveals the important role bin Laden played in uniting the Arab Muslims with their Afghan compatriots and spreading the ideology of the jihad, or holy war, to protect Islam, to all the various Islamic factions that took part in the war in Afghanistan. Although a number of recent books address the rise of fundamentalist movements in the Islamic world, none attempt to explain to general readers the emergence, character, and significance of that revival, nor do they bring together the many voices dividing both conservative and liberal currents in the region.
Huldt, Bo and Jansson, Erland, The Tragedy of Afghanistan (London, 1988)
Jalali, Ali Ahmad Afghan Guerrilla Warfare: In the Words of the Mujahideen Fighters
Junger, Sebastian Fire The author’s accounts of some of the world’s most inhospitable and brutalized places:- Kosovo, Macedonia, Kashmir, Sierra Leone and Afghanistan.
Kakar, M. Hassan, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982
Kaplan, Robert D., Soldiers of God: With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan
Khandra, Yasmina The Swallows of Kabul: A Novel
Kilgore, Axel The Afghanistan Penetration
Lamb, Christina The Sewing Circles of Herat: A Personal Voyage Through Afghanistan
Lewis, Bernard, The Middle East, Touchstone, paperback. Possibly the best, probably the best written and certainly the most succinct history of the region over the last 2,000 years.
Lewis, Bernard What Went Wrong: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East The author shows the great heights the Islamic world has fallen since 1699 and how it has tried by reform and revolution to regain power in three main areas: military, economic and political.
Lohbeck, Kurt, Holy War, Unholy Victory: Eyewitness to the CIA’s Secret War in Afghanistan, Washington, DC, 1993Magnus, Ralph H. and Naby, Eden, Afghanistan: Mullah, Marx, and Mujahid (Nations of the Contemporary Middle East) (Hardcover - January 1998)
Maley, William and Saikal, Amin, The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan - The Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan has been designed to explore the background to the decision to withdraw and its broader implications.
Maley, William, ed., Fundamentalism Reborn: Afghanistan and the Taliban, New York, 1998
Marsden, Peter, The Taliban: War, Religion and the New Order in Afghanistan (Politics in Contemporary Asia Series) (Hardcover - October 1998)
Martin, Mike, Afghanistan, Inside a Rebel Stronghold: Journeys with the Mujahiddin - A journalist’s personal experiences of living with Afghan rebels.based on six months travelling with the Afghan Mujahiddin at the height of the war of resistance against the Russians.
Mayhew, Bradley et al Lonely Planet Central Asia
Newby, Eric, Short Walk in the Hindu Kush - This frank and funny account of an ill-prepared Himalayan expedition, taking the reader from London to the wilds of Afghanistan, is one of the classics of travel writing.
Norval, Morgan Triumph of Disorder: Islamic Fundamentalism, the New Face of War
The world is plagued by a growing number of violent, bloody conflicts that defy reason. “Triumph of Disorder” describes this dangerous world--a world in which our armed forces may soon be deeply involved.
Pelton, Robert, Adventurist: My Life in Dangerous Places - A funny and joyous book by a man passionate to learn about the stranger and wilder places in the world, The Adventurist takes readers places they might never willingly go, from the Taliban in Afghanistan to hit men in the Philippines.
Rashid, Ahmed, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia?
Rashid, Ahmed, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, Hardcover, March 2000Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist who has spent most of his career reporting on the region--he has personally met and interviewed many of the Taliban’s shadowy leaders. Taliban was written and published before the massacres of September 11, 2001, yet it is essential reading for anyone who hopes to understand the aftermath of that black day. It includes details on how and why the Taliban came to power, the government’s oppression of ordinary citizens (especially women), the heroin trade, oil intrigue, and--in a vitally relevant chapter--bin Laden’s sinister rise to power. These pages contain stories of mass slaughter, beheadings, and the Taliban’s crushing war against freedom: under Mullah Omar, it has banned everything from kite flying to singing and dancing at weddings. He has produced a compelling portrait of modern evil.
Roy, Oliver, Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War, Hardcover - September 1995
Rubin, Barnett and Laber, Jeri, A Nation is Dying: Afghanistan Under the Soviets - Based on interviews with Afghan refugees and the accounts of Westerners, this book seeks to detail the campaign carried out by Soviet and Afghan Government forces as they tried to subdue the countryside and make it inhospitable to resistance forces.
Rubin, Barnett The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System, Second Edition (New Haven, 1995)
Schultheis, Rob, Night Letters: Inside Wartime Afghanistan - Sometimes lyrical, sometimes harrowing, sometimes absurdly comic, Night Letters gives an indelible human face to a conflict that few Americans have followed or understood.
Seierstad, Anne The Bookseller of Kabul
Sulima and Hala, Batya Swift Yasgur Behind the Burqa: Our Life in Afghanistan and How We Escaped to Freedom
Tamarov, Vladislav, Afghanistan: Soviet Vietnam (San Francisco, 1992)
Tamarov, Vladislav Afghanistan: A Russian Soldier’s Story
Tanner, Stephen Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban
Viet Hoa Pham, Afghanistan International Travel Map
Vollmann, William, An Afghanistan Picture Show, or, How I Saved the World - Recounting his journey through war-torn Afghanistan, the award-winning author describes the orphans, refugees, guerilla leaders, bureaucrats, corrupt officials, and has-been politicians in the region.
Weaver, Mary Anne, A Portrait of Egypt, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, paperback. The title is slightly too narrow-this New Yorker reporter’s book does concentrate on Egypt but is in fact a portrait of an entire region increasingly in the grip of fundamentalist Islam; as a bonus, the paperback edition contains a new portrait of Osama bin Laden.
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