From Library Journal
Marsden has written a compact book about the ultra-fundamentalist Islamic movement known as the Taliban that has ruled most of Afghanistan since 1996. Afghanistan, one of the world's least developed countries, has had a tortuous history in recent decades. The Soviet invasion in 1979 led to a brutal war that set the stage for the internecine civil war that has engulfed Afghanistan unabated. The Taliban's leaders view other Muslim groups as not sufficiently Islamic and have set out to replace them by force. The author, information coordinator of the British Agencies Afghanistan Group and a research associate at Queen Elizabeth House in Oxford, traces the genesis and development of the Taliban and places the movement within Afghanistan's societal and ethnic mosaic. He also analyzes the group's ideology and policies within the context of domestic Afghan and regional politics. This informative and readable guide to the labyrinth of contemporary Afghanistan is useful for both general readers and academics alike.?Nader Entessar, Spring Hill Coll., Mobile, AL
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The Taliban, following their takeover of all but the northern sliver of Afghanistan in 1996, have become rather notorious in the West for the severity of their imposition of religious law, particularly for ejecting women from all workplaces. No girls may be educated, so the Taliban order, until a proper Islamic school system is in place. So whence come the beliefs behind these policies and the people who hold them? Among the several positive attributes of Marsden's survey of recent Afghan history is his tracing of Taliban views to the ascetic Sunni Wahhabi movement in 1700s Arabia. The inheritors of Wahhabiism, the Saudis, supported the Taliban movement, but Marsden explains that it grew fast for reasons internal to Afghanistan--namely, the perceived corruption of the Mujahidin factions that fought the Soviets and the anarchy their infighting visited upon the country. Striving for objectivity, Marsden elucidates what the Taliban have done, the spectrum of opinion within the movement, and its tense relations with international aid agencies. This is the only book in print about the Taliban. Gilbert Taylor
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.