Pakistan on the Brink: The future of Pakistan, Afghanistan and the West - Softcover

Rashid, Ahmed

Softcover

ISBN 10: 024196007X ISBN 13: 9780241960073

Publisher: Penguin, 2013

Synopsis

Ahmed Rashid, author of Descent Into Chaos and Taliban, charts the latest developments in the dangerous trajectory of one of the world's most strategically important, and volatile, countries - and the effects on its neighbours and us all

'An expert's examination of the volatile region that gives the world's policy-makers their biggest nightmare' Christina Lamb, Sunday Times

What does the future hold for the world's most unstable region? With Bin Laden dead, Pakistan threatened by internal power struggles and the US and Britain beginning withdrawal from Afghanistan, there is no better guide the possibilities - and dangers -than Ahmed Rashid. In his follow-up to Descent into Chaos, he examines the changing casts of characters in this story, the future of the Taliban and international terrorism, and the political manoeuvring both within Pakistan and Afghanistan and among Western allies, offering a way forward for all countries involved.

Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist based in Lahore, who has covered Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia for a variety of publications since 1979. He is the author of five books - the best selling Taliban, Descent into Chaos: The US and the Disaster in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asia, Jihad and The Resurgence of Central Asia. He writes for the Financial Times, the New York Times, the New York Review of Books, , BBC Online and Pakistani publications. Foreign Policy magazine chose him as one of the world's most important 100 Global Thinkers in 2009 and 2010. In 2008 he won Spain's prestigious Casa Asia prize for contributing most about Asia to the Spanish people.The following year he was presented with the prize for best columnist in the Spanish press by King Juan Carlos at a dinner honoring him. In December 2009 he was appointed a member of the board of New York's Committee to Protect Journalists. He has also served on the Board of Advisers for the International Committee of the Red Cross for five years. His books have won numerous prizes. His website is: www.ahmedrashid.com

'This excellent book provides a much-needed update on what has happened in Afghanistan and Pakistan ... Rashid has an eye for the big picture as well as a journalist's nose for detail' Daily Telegraph

'A powerful and pacey primer' Spectator

'A meticulous, reliable and authoritative chronicler ... Unlike many journalists Rashid has the courage to outline how he believes the catastrophic situation in his homeland (Pakistan) and its neighbour, Afghanistan, can be improved' Jason Burke, Observer

About this title

About the Author

Ahmed Rashid is a journalist who has been covering Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia for more than twenty years. He is a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, Far Eastern Economic Review, Daily Telegraph, and The Nation, a leading newspaper in Pakistan. His #1 New York Times bestseller Taliban has been translated into more than twenty languages.

Review

"[Rashid] literally wrote the book on the Taliban and now has added a superb work on the future of Pakistan."
— The Washington Post

"Insightful . . . Readers will welcome this insider’s lucid, expert account of a disaster in the making." — Kirkus Reviews

"Pakistan on the Brink is a page turner. Through Ahmed Rashid's eloquent, incisive, objective, and fact-based descriptions of events and blunders repeatedly committed by the Afghan, Pakistani, and American establishments, the reader gets a great understanding of the genesis of the quagmire for which President Obama has coined the phrase AfPak." — Louisville Courier-Journal

Praise for Descent into Chaos

"Powerful." — Wolf Blitzer
"A clear-headed, sobering look at a country whose ties with the U.S. are becoming ever more frayed." — Publishers Weekly

“Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, is that most valuable of political analysts: both insider and outsider to the problems he studies. His book should be read by anyone pondering how America might stop widening Osama bin Laden’s pool of bomb-clad volunteers.” — Chicago Tribune
“Rashid’s book should be required reading for both presidential candidates, and anyone who wants to understand the jihadi problem.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer

"Ahmed Rashid's latest work provides essential insights for anyone who hopes to understand what's going on in Central Asia and the alternative futures that stretch out before it."
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"A clear-headed, sobering look at a country whose ties with the U.S. are becoming ever more frayed." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Excellent...Nobody tells the story of Musharaff’s duplicity better than Rashid.” — Time
“Ahmed Rashid has over the decades turned out to be something of a prophet in the region...[and] his fourth book [is] a caustic compendium of the mistakes by the Bush administration and, by extension, its regional allies, in tackling Islamic militancy.” — International Herald Tribune

Edition details

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 024196007X
• ISBN 13: 9780241960073
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256