Volume 30, Number 20 · December 22, 1983
The Faraway War
By Edward Mortimer
Report from Afghanistan
by Gérard Chaliand, translated by Tamar Jacoby
Viking/Penguin, 112 pp., $13.95; $4.95 (paper)
In Afghanistan: An American Odyssey
by Jere Van Dyk
Coward-McCann, 253 pp., $18.95
A Hitch or Two in Afghanistan: A Journey behind Russian Lines
by Nigel Ryan
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 210 pp., £8.95
Behind Russian Lines: An Afghan Journal
by Sandy Gall
Sidgwick & Jackson, 194 pp., £8.95
Afghanistan and the Soviet Union
by Henry S. Bradsher
Duke University Press, 324 pp., $32.50; $12.75 (paper)
Red Flag over Afghanistan: The Communist Coup, the Soviet Invasion and Their Consequences
by Thomas T. Hammond
Westview Press, 300 pp., $25.00; $10.95 (paper)
Four years have passed since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and we in the West still do not seem to know what to think about it, let alone what to do about it. For most of us it is still, as Czechoslovakia was for Chamberlain in 1938, 'a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom we know nothing.' In fact the Afghans are a great deal further away than the Czechs, both geographically and culturally; so our excuse for knowing nothing about them is somewhat better. But at least the Westerner who wants to know something about Afghanistan now has quite a lot to read.
Review, 4404 words
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