No good men among the living America, the Taliban, and the war through Afghan eyes
"As U.S. troops prepare to withdraw, the shocking tale of how the American military had triumph in sight in Afghanistan--and then brought the Taliban back from the dead. In the popular imagination, Afghanistan is often regarded as the site of intractable conflict, the American war against the T...
| Main Author: | Gopal, Anand, 1980- |
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt and Company,
2014.
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| Edition: | First Edition |
| Subjects: |
| Summary: |
"As U.S. troops prepare to withdraw, the shocking tale of how the American military had triumph in sight in Afghanistan--and then brought the Taliban back from the dead. In the popular imagination, Afghanistan is often regarded as the site of intractable conflict, the American war against the Taliban a perpetually hopeless quagmire. But as Anand Gopal demonstrates in this stunning chronicle, top Taliban leaders were in fact ready to surrender within months of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, renouncing all political activity and submitting to the new government. Effectively, the Taliban ceased to exist--yet the American forces were not ready to accept such a turnaround. Driven by false intelligence from corrupt warlords and by a misguided conviction that Taliban members could never change sides, the U.S. instead continued to press the conflict, resurrecting the insurgency that persists to this day. Gopal's dramatic narrative, full of vivid personal detail, follows three Afghans through years of U.S. missteps: a Taliban commander, a U.S.-backed warlord, and a housewife trapped in the middle of the fighting. With its intimate accounts of life in small Afghan villages, and harrowing tales of crimes committed by Taliban leaders and American-supported provincial officials alike, No Good Men Among the Living lays bare the workings of America's longest war and the truth behind its prolonged agony. A thoroughly original expose; of the conflict that is still being fought, it shows just how the American intervention went so desperately wrong."--Publisher information. |
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| Physical Description: |
304 pages : map ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography: |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: |
9780805091793 (hardback) 0805091793 (hardback) |
| Author Notes: |
Anand Gopal is a journalist and author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban and the War Through Afghan Eyes, which describes the travals of three Afghans caught in the war on terror. It was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction, the 2014 National Book Award and the 2015 Helen Bernstein Award. It was awarded the 2015 Ridenhour Prize for demonstrating "why the United States' emphasis on counterterrorism at the expense of nation-building and reconciliation inadvertently led to the Taliban's resurgence after 2001. Gopal is notable for his reporting in Afghanistan and the Middle East. He is believed to be one of the few Western journalists to have embedded with the Taliban, an experience that forms part of the basis of No Good Men Among the Living. In 2012 Gopal reported for Harper's Magazine on the town of Taftanaz in Syria, which suffered a massacre at the hands of the regime of Bashar al-Assad. In 2014 he reported for Harper's on a murderous U.S.-backed police chief in Kandahar, Afghanistan. He has reported for the Wall Street Journal, the Christian Science Monitor and Harpers and other outlets. (Bowker Author Biography) |