The Struggle for Afghanistan

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981. First? Edition. First? Printing. Hardcover. very good/good. 22 cm, 236 pages, illus., former owner's stamp on front endpaper. Extract from a review posted on-line. The Newells, Afghan specialists who have lived in and written extensively on that country, have provided an interpretation that is a much-needed antidote to reports in the Western press which have stressed both the unpopularity of the Communists and the "backwardness" of the Afghan people, an "evenhanded" treatment which implies that the benighted attitudes of the latter somehow justify the repressive policies of the former. As the Newells demonstrate, the Communists who attained power in the April 1979 coup were from the very beginning intent not on reforming the fabric of Afghan society, but on destroying it, in order to bolster their own tenuous power base. Moreover, this "revolution from the top" was carried out with all the arrogance and cruelty that have become the trademarks of Communist regimes around the world.