Back in late 2004, a friend gave me his copy of Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World and told me that the story was fascinating. I’ve been not reading it ever since then. I picked it up again a few weeks ago to find out more about the man and […]
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I’ve been trying to decide whether or not to read a translation of the Quran and if so, which one to read. This title keeps showing up on the short lists of good histories of Islam. It is also on a list of highly-recommended books from the State Department. Karen Armstrong’s Islam: A Short History […] Several times in Descent into Chaos, Amhed Rashid made reference to his first work on the Taliban and how he would not repeat that story in Descent. So, having covered 2001 through early 2008 in Descent, I went back to learn more about the Taliban from the beginning (approximately 1994). Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and […] Trying to find out what’s gone on in Afghanistan since 9/11, I read Ahmed Rashid’s Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Rashid is a journalist from Pakistan. He has previously published well-received books on the Taliban and on Jihad in Central Asia. Descent […] After Fromkin and before starting my Spanish studies in early December, I had a chance to read the first half of Bernard Lewis’ The Middle East: A Brief History of the Last 2,000 Years. I was trying to wrap up my whirlwind review of the Middle East, but didn’t quite finish. This volume, like the […] |
