After the swift defeat of the Taliban in 2001, American optimism has steadily evaporated in the face of mounting violence; a new "war of a thousand cuts" has now brought the country to its knees. In the Graveyard of Empires is a political history of Afghanistan in the "Age of...
After a brief survey of the great empires in Afghanistan--the campaigns of Alexander the Great, the British in the era of Kipling, and the late Soviet Union--Seth G. Jones examines the central question of our own war: how did an insurgency develop? Following the September 11...