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Book Summary and Reviews of Pakistan on the Brink by Ahmed Rashid

Pakistan on the Brink by Ahmed Rashid

Pakistan on the Brink

The Future of America, Pakistan, and Afghanistan

by Ahmed Rashid

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  • Mar 2012, 256 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

The leading journalist on Pakistan lays out America's options with Pakistan and Afghanistan in the post-Bin Laden years.

What are the possibilities-and hazards-facing America as it withdraws from Afghanistan and as it reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? Where is the Taliban now in both these countries? What does the immediate future hold and what are America's choices as President Obama considers our complicated history and faces reelection?

These are some of the crucial questions that Ahmed Rashid - Pakistan's preeminent journalist - takes on in this follow-up to his acclaimed Descent into Chaos. Rashid correctly predicted that the Iraq war would have to be refocused into Afghanistan and that Pakistan would emerge as the leading player through which American interests and actions would have to be directed. Now, as Washington and the rest of the West wrestle with negotiating with unreliable and unstable "allies" in Pakistan, there is no better guide to the dark future than Ahmed Rashid.

He focuses on the long-term problems-the changing casts of characters, the future of international terrorism, and the actual policies and strategies both within Pakistan and Afghanistan and among the Western allies-as the world tries to bring some stability to a fractured region saddled with a legacy of violence and corruption. The decisions made by America and the West will affect the security and safety of the world. And as he has done so well in the past, Rashid offers sensible solutions and provides a way forward for all three countries.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Starred Review. Rashid's concluding advice, although reasonable, requires too many leaders to come to their senses, but readers will welcome this insider's lucid, expert account of a disaster in the making." - Kirkus Reviews

"Here [Rashid] considers what withdrawal from Afghanistan will mean for America, particularly as it reconsiders its relationship with Pakistan. Serious reading." - Library Journal

This information about Pakistan on the Brink was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Ahmed Rashid Author Biography

Ahmed Rashid is a former Muhajir-Pakistani militant, a journalist and best-selling foreign policy author of several books about Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. He has been a correspondent for London's Daily Telegraph and The Far Eastern Economic Review for twenty years. He is a regular contributor to BBC Online, The Washington Post, and other respected venues.

His book Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia has been a world-wide best seller. It has been translated into 22 languages and one million copies have been sold since September 11, 2001. He has also written The Resurgence of Central Asia: Islam or Nationalism? (1994), Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia (2004), Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in...

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