Synopsis
A groundbreaking account of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as seen through the eyes of the men who fought it, from NPR's Moscow correspondent.
The Barnes & Noble Review
To stumble into Afghanistan is to stumble into history -- or at least to stumble into a trap laid by historians, whereby any foreign occupier of the country is compared, all too tediously, to his failed predecessors. Notice the hierarchy of these comparisons. If the historian draws parallels to the armies of Alexander the Great, he does you an honor: Alexander's empire had at least conquered the known world before Afghanistan undid it. Analogies to the Anglo-Afghan Wars and Elphinstone's army in 1842 are less flattering, and more menacing. And if the historian remarks that your unit is "just like the 154th Spetsnaz Detachment," he is saying not only that you're doomed to ignominious defeat but also that you're too historically ignorant to realize when you're being insulted.