The first biography in a decade of Afghan resistance leader Ahmad Shah Massoud.When the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the forces of resistance were disparate. Many groups were caught up in fighting each other and competing for Western arms. The exception were those commanded by Ahmad Shah Massoud, the military strategist and political operator who solidified the resistance and undermined the Russian occupation, leading resistance members to a series of defen...

Afghanistan's strategically significant lands have long been fought over by foreign invaders. Today, as yet another generation risks life and limb in this inhospitable territory, an ever-rising death toll puts back under the spotlight the way the modern war in Afghanistan is being run, and demands answers. Drawing on interviews with Afghan politicians, businessmen and ordinary people, British, American and European diplomats and soldiers, Sandy Gall addresses the challenges - political, re...

A mix of history and current affairs, travel, reportage and anecdote, this passionate book speaks up for the Bushmen, the first people of Africa.*Featuring a preface by Prince Charles*Bushmen were hunting and gathering, painting and mining copper, thousands of years ago. They were the first people of Africa. Deadly shots with their bows and arrows, they were, in their heyday, Lords of the Desert. They fought extremely bravely for their land...

In Jawbreaker Gary Berntsen, until recently one of the CIA’s most decorated officers, comes out from under cover for the first time to describe his no-holds-barred pursuit of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.With his unique mix of clandestine knowledge and paramilitary training, Berntsen represents the new face of counterterrorism. Recognized within the agency for his aggressiveness, Berntsen, when dispatched to Afghanistan, made annihilating the enemy his job description....

Frontline offers an insight into the life of just one soldier out of the many thousands in the British Infantry deployed to Afghanistan. These modern day heroes risk their lives on a daily basis to help bring peace to a troubled country.Some of these soldiers are fresh out of school, or college, and within a few months find themselves in a war zone fighting for their lives.The book gives a candid account of life on the front line. The highs and the lows of fighting a war tho...

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour.Britain has invaded Afghanistan twice before in the nineteenth century. Both times tenacious Afghan fighters defended their country to humiliating British defeats. The Soviet Union also discovered what a tough enemy the Afghans are after nearly a decade of conflict from 1979 to 1989. When not fighting foreign invaders, Afghanistan was torn apart by Civil War from 1990 to 1996, resulting in victory for the Taliban.The Afg...

Robert Fisk’s bestselling eyewitness account of the events that have shaped the Middle East is alive with vivid reporting and incisive historical analysis.The history of the Middle East is an epic story of tragedy, betrayal and world-shaking events. It is a story that Robert Fisk has been reporting for over thirty years. His masterful narrative spans the most volatile regions of the Middle East, chronicling with both rage and compassion the death by deceit of tens of thousands of M...

Winner of the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-FictionFinalist for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political WritingFinalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fictionFinalist for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for NonfictionAn incredible work of non-fiction that reads like a thriller, All We Leave Behind is the true story of a family fleeing the death sentence of a ruthless warlord, written by th...

From the award-winning co-author of I Am Malala, this book asks just how the might of NATO, with 48 countries and 140,000 troops on the ground, failed to defeat a group of religious students and farmers? How did the West’s war in Afghanistan and across the Middle East go so wrong?Farewell Kabul tells how the West turned success into defeat in the longest war fought by the United States in its history and by Britain since the Hundred Years War. It ...

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 so...

“How we got to where we are in Afghanistan.”—Matthew Kaminski, Wall Street JournalThis definitive account of the American experience in Afghanistan “[zeroes] in on what went awry after America’s successful routing of the Taliban in late 2001” (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times) to explain how a growing sanctuary for insurgents in Pakistan and a collapsing government in Kabul catalyzed the Taliban resurgence. Examining what has worked thus far—and what hasn’t—Jones ...

In the brutal hours before and after Gaddafis overthrow and throughout the revolutionary aftermath of the past year, Luke Harding and Martin Chulov have reported for the Guardian from inside Libya. In this Guardian Short, brand-new reportage gives in vivid, personal detail, an eyewitness account of the moment of Gaddafis capture and the current state of Libya.The end for Colonel Muammar Gaddafi when it came, after 42 years of dictatorial power, was ignominious and violent. After months of bl...