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The history of modern Afghanistan is an epic drama, a thriller, a
tragedy, a surreal farce. Every forty years or so, over the last
two centuries, some great global power has attempted to take
control of Afghanistan, only to slink away wounded and bewildered.
Games without Rules recounts this strange story, not from the
outside looking in, as is usually the case, but from the inside
looking out. Here, the interventions and invasions by foreign
powers are not the main event. They are interruptions of the main
event, for Afghans have a story of their own, quite apart from all
the invasions (a story often interrupted by invasions!) Drawing on
his Afghan background, Muslim roots, and Western and Afghan
sources, Tamim Ansary weaves an epic story that moves from a
universe of village republics,the old Afghanistan,through a
tumultuous drama of tribes, factions, and forces, to the current
struggle. The drama involves a dazzling array of colourful
characters,such as the towering warrior-poet Ahmad Shah, who
founded the country the wily spider-king Dost Mohammed the Great,
who told the British I am like a wooden spoon you can toss me
about, but I will not be broken" and the late nineteenth-century
Iron Amir," who said a telescope would interest him only if it
could shoot bullets, since what use had he for the moon? A
compelling narrative told in an accessible, conversational style,
Games without Rules offers revelatory insight into a country long
at the centre of international debate, but never fully understood
by the outside world.
Farah Ahmedi's "poignant tale of survival" ("Chicago Tribune")
chronicles her journey from war to peace. Equal parts tragedy and
hope, determination and daring, Ahmedi's memoir delivers a
remarkably vivid portrait of her girlhood in Kabul, where the sound
of gunfire and the sight of falling bombs shaped her life and stole
her family. She herself narrowly escapes death when she steps on a
land mine. Eventually the war forces her to flee, first over the
mountains to refugee camps across the border, and finally to
America. Ahmedi proves that even in the direst circumstances, not
only can the human heart endure, it can thrive. "The Other Side of
the Sky" is "a remarkable journey" ("Chicago Sun-Times"), and Farah
Ahmedi inspires us all.
The Western narrative of world history largely omits a whole
civilization. Destiny Disrupted tells the history of the world from
the Islamic point of view, and restores the centrality of the
Muslim perspective, ignored for a thousand years. In Destiny
Disrupted, Tamim Ansary tells the rich story of world history as it
looks from a new perspective: with the evolution of the Muslim
community at the center. His story moves from the lifetime of
Mohammed through a succession of far-flung empires, to the tangle
of modern conflicts that culminated in the events of 9/11. He
introduces the key people, events, ideas, legends, religious
disputes, and turning points of world history, imparting not only
what happened but how it is understood from the Muslim perspective.
He clarifies why two great civilizations-Western and Muslim-grew up
oblivious to each other, what happened when they intersected, and
how the Islamic world was affected by its slow recognition that
Europe-a place it long perceived as primitive-had somehow hijacked
destiny. With storytelling brio, humor, and evenhanded sympathy to
all sides of the story, Ansary illuminates a fascinating parallel
to the world narrative usually heard in the West. Destiny Disrupted
offers a vital perspective on world conflicts many now find so
puzzling.
Forty thousand years ago, the human species existed as thousands of
small, virtually autonomous bands, roaming a world almost entirely
untouched their presence, each band in contact with a few neighbors
but unaware of the thousands of others spread across the planet.
Today, no life can unfold in isolation from the general flux and
flow of human activity. Every habitable inch of the planet is
inhabited by humans, there is no place left untouched by our
presence, and events anywhere on this planet can have consequences
felt by people anywhere else on this planet. The center of the
world no longer seems to be this place or that place but the system
as a whole. This journey - from vulnerable small groups to a
planet-encompassing hive - is the subject of Tamim Ansary's elegant
and gripping history. His object is not just to describe the
journey, but to illuminate origins of distinct ways of
understanding the world, organizing ourselves, and making sense of
what we experience. What each of us sees when we look up at the
stars-or at the political landscape of this moment-is shaped by a
narrative begun many thousands of years ago; and by the
environment, tools, and language that informed that narrative.
Ansary also reveals our various gods and laws, our rulers and
bankers, our philosophers and outcasts, each of which is a
continuous presence in the various global cultures. They are the
survivors in the human drama, whereas nation states, corporations,
policies and political ideas are all susceptible to violent
upheaval and dramatic erasure. Our current moment, Ansary shows, is
one of revolutionary reinvention, as old habits are cast aside and
reconfigured by the ever more intertwined world we have created.
The whole of human history, after all, has been leading up to it.
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Sinking the Ark (Paperback)
Tamim Ansary; Contributions by Justin Donica
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R538
R462
Discovery Miles 4 620
Save R76 (14%)
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Since 9/11 there has been a cultural and political blossoming among
those of the Afghan diaspora, especially in the United States,
revealing a vibrant, active, and intellectual Afghan American
community. And the success of Khaled Hosseni's The Kite Runner, the
first work of fiction written by an Afghan American to become a
bestseller, has created interest in the works of other Afghan
American writers. One Story, Thirty Stories (or "Afsanah,
Seesaneh," the Afghan equivalent of "once upon a time") collects
poetry, fiction, essays, and selections from two blogs from
thirty-three men and women--poets, fiction writers, journalists,
filmmakers and video artists, photographers, community leaders and
organizers, and diplomats.
Some are veteran writers, such as Tamim Ansary and Donia Gobar, but
others are novices and still learning how to craft their own
"story," their unique Afghan American voice. The fifty pieces in
this rich anthology reveal journeys in a new land and culture. They
show people trying to come to grips with a life in exile, or they
trace the migration maps of parents. They navigate the jagged
landscape of the Soviet invasion, the civil war of the 1990s and
the rise of the Taliban, and the ongoing American occupation.
The day after the World Trade Center was destroyed, Tamim Ansary sent an anguished e-mail to twenty friends, discussing the attack from his perspective as an Afghan American. The message reached millions. Born to an Afghan father and American mother, Ansary grew up in the intimate world of Afghan family life and emigrated to San Francisco thinking he’d left Afghan culture behind forever. At the height of the Iranian Revolution, however, he took a harrowing journey through the Islamic world, and in the years that followed, he struggled to unite his divided self and to find a place in his imagination where his Afghan and American identities might meet.
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