In the past decade Pakistan has emerged as a country of immense importance. Large, heavily populated, strategically placed between Iran, Afghanistan and India, Pakistan has since its creation just over sixty years ago been pulled in several different, irreconcilable directions.
In the wake of Pakistan's development of nuclear weapons, Osama Bin Laden's presence in its unpoliceable border areas, its shelter of the Afghan Taleban, and the spread of terrorist attacks by groups based in Pakistan to London, Bombay and New York, there is a clear need to understand this remarkable and highly contradictory place. Far from seeing Pakistan as the failed state often portrayed in the media, Lieven's extraordinary new book instead treats it as a viable and coherent state that, within limits and by the standards of its own region rather than the West, does work. Lieven argues strongly against US actions that would risk destroying that state in the illusory search for victory in Afghanistan.
This work is based on a profound and sophisticated analysis of Pakistan's history and its social, religious and political structures. Lieven has interviewed hundreds of Pakistanis at every level of society, from leading politicians and soldiers to village mullahs and rickshaw drivers. In particular, his examination of the roots of popular sympathy for the Taleban in Pakistan draws on the testimony of people whose views are rarely consulted by Western analysts.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Anatol Lieven
Anatol Lieven, a former senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, previously covered Central Europe for The Financial Times; Pakistan, Afghanistan, the former Soviet Union, and Russia for The Times (London), and India as a freelance journalist. He was also an editor at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, where he also worked for the Eastern Services of the BBC. Mr. Lieven is the author of numerous books on foreign policy, including The Baltic Revolution: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence (Yale University Press, 1993), which won the George Orwell Prize for Political Writing and the Yale University Press Governors’ Award. His work on American political culture, America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism, was published by Oxford University Press in 2004. His latest book, Ethical Realism: A Vision for America’s Role in the World, co-authored with John Hulsman, was published by Pantheon in September 2006. He has also written for The Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, The National Interest, The Christian Science Monitor, Prospect (U.K.), and The Nation, among other publications. Mr. Lieven holds a B.A. in history and a doctorate in political science from Jesus College, Cambridge. As a Senior Research Fellow with the New America Foundation, Mr. Lieven focuses on U.S. global strategy and the war on terror.
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