The Taliban

Gr 8 Up—This volume centers around four main questions: "Who Are the Taliban?"; "How Should the United States Deal with the Taliban?"; "What Is the Taliban's Relationship with Pakistan?"; and "What Is the Taliban's Relationship with Other Nations?" It is within this framework that key leaders and experts such as Barack Obama, Peter Bergen, and Dmitry Shlapentokh explore issues from America's transitional military strategy to how the U.S. economic crisis has forced Russia and China into an uneasy alliance against the Taliban. Each chapter contains a brief preface and is packed with a diversity of nuanced arguments concerning Pakistan, shaky economics, the Afghan drug trade, and shifting geopolitics. The volume includes a handful of sidebars and charts and concludes with the contact information for related organizations such as the Afghanistan Relief Organization and the U.S.-Afghanistan Women's Council. With fresh, varied perspectives, this book equips students with the critical-thinking skills necessary in a world of ever-increasing partisan extremism.—Brian Odom, Pelham Public Library, AL