An eyewitness account by an acclaimed New Yorker reporter

Wedged between India and Afghanistan, Pakistan is the second-largest nation in the Islamic world, and is situated in what is currently one of the most volatile regions on earth. It has assumed a commanding role in militant Islam, a frightening portent being its creation of Afghanistan's bizarre fundamentalist student militia, the Taliban; and with some fifteen private Islamist armies and at least twenty nuclear weapons, it is considered to be one of the most terrifying places in the world. Its disintegration would pose an unthinkable threat to the United States and the West, and the man who will determine Pakistan's future course is the little-known, enigmatic General Pervez Musharraf.

Mary Anne Weaver presents her personal journey through a country in turmoil, reconstructing, largely in the voices of the key participants themselves--Generals Musharraf and Zia, and Benazir Bhutto--the legacies now haunting Pakistan in the aftermath of the U.S.-sponsored jihad of the 1980s in Afghanistan. Fusing geopolitical choices with a vivid portrait of a land--of its people, its mystery, and its clans-- Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and Afghanistan , provides an essential background for those seeking to understand the problems the international community now faces, and poses some deeply disturbing questions about the future of conflict in South Asia.