Swimming with warlords : a dozen-year journey across the Afghan War / Kevin Sites.
Material type: TextPublisher: New York, NY : Harper Perennial, [2014]Edition: First editionDescription: xv, 393 pages : illustrations ; 21 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 0062339419
- 9780062339416
Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book | Main Library | NonFiction | 958.1047 S623 | Available | 33111007951110 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
In this electrifying first-person account, journalist and author Kevin Sites goes deep into the geopolitical morass of Afghanistan to emerge with critical insights into both a people and a war that few truly comprehend.
As a journalist for NBC News, Kevin Sites made his first trip to Afghanistan in October 2001, crossing the Amu Darya River at night, traveling with Northern Alliance fighters as they toppled the Taliban regime with the help of American forces. In that first hundred days, he lost seven colleagues and nearly his own life. Since then, Sites has returned five more times. On his last trip in summer 2013, on the eve of America's planned withdrawal, he retraced the steps of his first original odyssey to examine what, if anything, has changed.
Using his trademark immersive style, Sites uncovered surprising stories with unexpected truths. He swam in the Kunduz River with an infamous warlord named Nabi Gechi, who demonstrated his fearsome killing skills as well as a genius for peaceful invention. Sites talked with ex-Taliban fighters, politicians, female cops, farmers, drug addicts, and diplomats, and patrolled with American and Afghan soldiers. In Swimming with Warlords he helps us understand this country of primitive beauty, dark mysteries, and savage violence, as well as the conflict that has cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives--and what we might expect tomorrow and in the years to come.
Includes bibliographical references.
Prologue : entrance -- Part I. The north. Over the border -- Civil war -- The House of Massoud -- The ghosts of Kalakata -- Sticks and stones -- The warlord and the Taliban -- Kurash -- Hindu Kush -- Part II. Kabul. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow -- Fixers -- Lions -- Unintended consequences -- Under the bridge -- Wall of bones -- More than war -- Women -- Lawyers, guns, and money -- Part III. Jalalabad and Tora Bora. The road -- Addiction affliction -- Tora Bora runaround -- Dead man's bed and other mysteries -- Part IV. Wardak and Logar. Human terrain teams -- Targets -- Combat outpost Soltan Kheyl -- Part V. The last embed. Suicide vest -- Epilogue : exit -- Afterword : America's post 9/11 legacy in shambles.
"In this electrifying first-person account, journalist and author Kevin Sites goes deep into the geopolitical morass of Afghanistan to emerge with critical insights into both a people and a war that few truly comprehend."--Page 4 of cover.