Harry Bradsher's book "Afgan Communism and Soviet Intervention" is a good book about the political situation in Afghanistan during the late 1970s and 1980s. It covers in great detail the governmental situation and changes that drove Afghanistan and the Soviet Union into armed conflict.
What I which was included in this book was more information about the combat actions between the warring factions.
So if your looking for a book about the political situation, then this is it. If your looking for a book on the military operations of the Soviet-Afghanistan War, then you might want to look somewhere else.

There have been numerous books written about Afghanistan in the years since 1979 when the Soviet Union invaded that poor, suffering nation. In the 20 years since, we have seen wanna-be scholarly tomes guaranteed to glaze the readers' eyes in short order -- many to be outdated before the ink was dry. We've also seen tales of intrepid adventure by foreign jornalists and interlopers who concentrated on their own travels, opinions, woes and hang-nails (in which the Afghans themselves were mere wallpaper behind the writers' self absorbtion). In too many Afghan books, important historic events were reduced to facile boilerplate.

Now thankfully comes Henry Bradsher, a former AP man who served in Moscow and is a veteran observer of the region. He has a sharp eye for detail, an immense depth of knowledge and an unusually critical sensitivity for his subject.

His latest book, an update and rewrite of an earlier edition on the subject, lays out one of the most intriguing sagas of modern times -- from the Cold War to the New World Order. And he does it as no other writer in the field has yet done.

Even the oldest Afghan hands will find intriguing new details in this book, information that is exciting to read and vital for long-term history. Whether describing the assasination of Afghan leaders, the storming of a palace or the campus evolution of communism and Islamism, Brasher's writing is unparalleled. Only by absorbing his book and thereby comprehending recent Afghan history can we begin to understand what led to the disintegration of that nation as a state and its sad evolution as a headquarters for terrorism and the likes of Osama bin laden, the FBI's Most Wanted.

My copy of Bradsher's first book is now so dog-eared from constant reference as to be difficult to get around. His new and updated edition will surely meet the same fate, which is why I'll keep an extra copy handy just to occasionally savor Bradsher's living moments of a tragic yet fascinating history.

It's rare that a scholarly work presents the ingredients and outline for a serious Hollywood movie, while at the same time preserving academic integrity. Henry Bradsher's book does that. It's a 5-star masterpiece.

Read it and savor it -- or be the less for missing out on a grand experience.

Bradsher and Afghanistan Zindabad.

vollmann's afghanistan book is surely his weakest, but it is a useful window on the author's life and some themes that run through his fiction. it is at times tedious and over-thought (the style is two parts personal history, one part philosophizing). but after all, the book is largely about the inability of a thoughtful young man to apply his high-minded idealism in a practical way, so a little wittgenstein here and there can be appropriate. overall, vollmann's story is sadly poignant, but you have to be able to sympathize with his earnestness and altruism from the get-go. otherwise, you'll probably just get aggravated or bored.

I don't have much to say really, just that this book is rings with bold, naked, and humiliating truth and should be read by every American, especially those who step or even think of stepping off of their own shores. It's ridiculous that it's out of print. For anyone who has ever felt a desire to help another and is even dimly aware of the complex moral swamp "altruism" can be.

The first 3/4 of this book are 5-star, but it slips a bit toward the end when it dredges up Vietnam stories (one of which is fiction). Couple things to realize - first, it's not 368 pages - it's under 300. Second - it's not the stuff they advertise. Blow up the cover photo above to see what's really in there. No Peter Maas, no Stanton in Somalia, no Baer of the CIA and no Scott O'Grady, who wouldn't have belonged anyway, not being Special Forces. You get a really good article on SF in Afghanistan, a thrilling story from Desert Storm, an interesting story from Honduras, a couple of riveting reads from Haiti, and of course a chunk of Black Hawk down. But by page 172 you're back in Vietnam reading tired stuff you've seen before. It's worth buying for the first 172 pages, but given the subtitle, I wish Mr. Hardcastle had included some of what was advertised instead of the Vietnam stuff. Still and all, you won't put it down once you start - it's a two-day read and you'll enjoy it.

Unfortunately, most of the material here has been published prior to this book. There are a few original pieces though. The first is the only one that deals with Afghanistan("The Legend of Heavy D"). Most of the remaining originals deal with either Somalia or Vietnam...There was one particularly interesting piece about Green Berets training terrorists in Libya that I'd never heard of before in any of my extensive USSOF research. I got it to add to my SF library, but it's not essential. If you haven't read Mark Bowden, Eric Haney and Robert Baer's books (all excellent) this will provide you with some good samples ^_^

McCauley's portrayal of Central Asia and how it has developed begins with the Mongol hordes, and goes all the way through the Soviet takeover of the region and how the Taliban rose to power. The book flows smoothly, and is very clearly broken into several sections detailing the history, economics, and developing terrorism in each of the countries it describes. The only truly annoying thing in the format is the way the editors have taken one key sentence out of every paragraph and inserted it in the margin in a large font. It would be useful as a quick reference, but it seems forced and trivial most of the time, and is very distracting when you are just reading the book straight through, not stopping to take notes.

Outside of the poor editing, the book contains tons of useful information, and is interesting without being too complex. I highly recommend it for anyone who hasn't studied the region and wants to get a good overview of what has been happening there.

A great read, dealing with courage of the Afghan people. Sandy Gall seems to explain the situation that the Afghans faced in the war with the USSR, by putting you right there in the midst of the war. Without spending lots of time talking about history, you felt you were smelling mountain blossoms by moonlight, walking all evening to escape capture and then being served tea in some remote mountain village. Overall I felt Mr Gall's reporting brought me right into the heart of the suffering, hardship and struggle that the Afghan people experienced. And beneath this is the story of people, from the depravity of war to the triumph of brotherhood.

A remarkably resiliant traveler, Arthur Bonner chronicles his travels through Afghanistan in the worst years of the war. Actual accounts of battles as well as the state of the resistance abound and are surprisingly informative. However, given the scope of this book as well as the authors own superficial understanding of the situation in Afghanistan renders some conclusions hopelessly floating on the statements of the locals. But despite all this, the book is a good reading and certainly recommended.

If you're a great interest in the Russian armor,this book is for you, these covers all the tanks use by the Russian army during their 10 years fighting with the Afghans guerillias,this book focus mainly on pictures and some informations on the tanks. but it's worth.

The question is "can two large mobs of men on horseback fighting over a dead calf be considered a significant cultural event" ? The answer, after reading Azoy's book,is definitely "yes". Azoy lived and researched in Afghanistan during the 1970s, just before that country's agony of civil war excluded foreign scholars (and almost everyone else) for good. He was attracted to the ancient game of buzkashi as a metaphor for the "inner nature of Afghans" as suggested by Afghan acquaintances of his. The resulting study is a most excellent portrait of social and political competition taking dramatic form on a playing field. Though Azoy refers to Geertz only once in his book (p.15), the whole study can be read as a companion volume to Geertz' famous article on the Balinese cockfight. Buzkashi can be seen as a kind of text in which the Afghans are saying something about themselves TO themselves. While everything seemed polite and restrained on the surface in Afghan society, there was a violent, chaotic underpinning that became evident in buzkashi matches. As Azoy says, "With the coup of April, 1978, the largest buzkashi of all begins". It has not yet ended. For an interesting, well-written ethnography that can be extremely useful in teaching anthropology---draws comparisons to bullfights, American or Australian football, etc.---not to mention it being a book that gives an insight into Afghan society and politics like few others, you could do far worse than read BUZKASHI: GAME AND POWER IN AFGHANISTAN.

Given the current preconceptions regarding this country it is refreshing to see a publication that deals with just the facts.

This publication never presumes to offer an opinion regarding the issues regarding the possibility of trade in this country, but just provides the most succinct explanations based around business risk - in particular the key contacts, trade regulations, and local documentation sections were extremely useful.

The only thing that would have made the guide better would have been some export data pertaining to the previous years - although I appreciate such data may not exist in a readily available format.

Afghanistan, in the perceptions of many, is a small, seemingly inconsequential country. It has experienced encroachment from the Soviets, Pakistanis, Persians, Mughals, Mongols, Ottoman Turks and has been on the receiving end of a mixed positive and negative American presence. The people of Afghanistan have endured governmental incompetence, nepotism, torture, murder, political Islam, political negligence, state formation and collapse, ethnic and tribal strife and civil war. Afghanistan has been affected by all major international economic and political crises and as Rubin suggests is "The Mirror of the World" as the first chapter is titled.

Barnett Rubin clearly knows his subject and gives the reader a masterful analysis of the social and political realities of Afghanistan and how those played out in the (many times lack of) governance of the country. The analysis includes the interrelationships and rivalries of tribes, the communist party, political elites, and fundamentalist Islamic clerics and their supporters. Rubin also discusses the origins as well as the failures of the state system to administer to even a small portion of the citizens. The state, unable to withstand the factional vying for power of those groups as well as those more on the margin of Afghan politics, collapsed.

There was little if any legitimacy to the state in much of recent Afghan history. In fact, most officials were appointed by someone who simply forced his way into power. Another major problem for the political elites (and ultimately the citizens) was that most of the funding for social programs, infrastructure, as well as government employee paychecks were from international aid. There was exceedingly little investment of that aid in industry, which prevented the Afghans from repayment of loans and achieving economic and political independence.

The feudal relations of tribes and khans many times held strong even through short sighted goverment incursions and policies enacted to assert its own hegemony. The reasons for the collapse of the Afghan government become quite clear when one reads such a compelling account of political and economic failure.

Soviet control and manipulations are treated comprehensively and are well documented.

Rubin presents a thorough, nuanced, very well researched piece of sholarship and deserves much credit for teaching us the intricacies of state and political policy formation.

The one negative element I see is that it can be dry. However, that is usually a quality assigned by non-academics to academic writing. Although this is not light reading it should be clear that the book is highly informative.