D.S. Richards

This book is a clear narrative of the Anglo-Afghan Wars, and worthwhile for that alone. However, it is more compelling given the subsequent invasions of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, and then by the United States. It shows that we do not learn from history. The lessons learned by the British in Afghanistan during the 19th Century have had to be learned all over again. For example, in 1842, SIr Neville Bowles Chamberlain (not the Neville Chamberlain of "Appeasement" fame) wrote after a show more battle:

We marched one mile past the cantonments and encamped. They were a perfect waste, and where so much money had been spent not a house or barrack or tree left. Everything like its unhappy tennants, destroyed and gone forever; only here and there a trace of some gallant soldier might be distinguished in a small mound of earth....What scenes of woe and misery were here enacted, and this desolate place is a type of our miserable policy.
The destruction of our political influence is not more complete than of our cantonments. Twenty thousand men and fifteen crores of rupees have been swallowed up all in vain.

p.55. The Soviet Union insisted on learning the lesson through its own hard experience in Afghanistan. We can understand that Soviets might have reasoned that with their more modern weapons that they might succeed where the British had failed, but as the author points out, the Soviets fared no better:

...economic exhaustion, an ever-lengthening casualty list and the recognition of the impossibility of curbing widespread guerrilla activity in a mountainous terrain with its frontiers open for a ready supply of sophisticated weaponry...

p.204. The United States ignored the lessons of the British and the Soviet invasions of Afghanistan, and now has had to learn them for itself.
This book was written before the final withdrawal of the Soviet troops, with its moral being that the Afghans may lose every set battle, but their guerrilla tactics make them ultimately unconquerable by military force. Of course it is now merely trite to say that Afghanistan is where empires go to die, but this book provides the actual narrative of the battles where Britain lost its money and so many of its own young men, as well as the young men of the sepoy troops (Indians and Sikhs)--not to mention the tremendous loss of Afghan soldiers, guerrillas, and civilians. show less

A must read book about one great man of the Crusading period. Ever since Walter Scott, we Westerners have been fond of Salah-ed-Din, and I think rightly. Though I've been told, he's not the hero in the Islamic world, that role being taken by Baibars, the man revealed here would have been hard not to respect. Even William the bishop of Tyre has good words to say about him, as has Usamah ibn Munqid. The book is not organized the way a Frank would have done it, and you have to work a bit to show more establish the chronology, it is worth the time of every student of Outremer.
The translation I read was plucked from some very dusty library stacks, and was published in 1943, so the edition cited here might not be the one I read. the original was extant by 1185. show less

We have here one of the principal sources for an Islamic view of the Crusades. al-Athir was an Iraqi who died about 1233 just as the Mongol irruption was to break upon the Islamic world, and while the crusading coast was still available to the western Europeans. His writing plan was an indication of the historians' dilemma of whether narrative flow or chronology has predominance. This volume covers the best period of Outremer, and puts the struggle against the Catholics of Europe in context show more with the Islamic necessity of maintaining the barrier against the Eurasian nomads at the same time. The translator was able, and his prose is clear, but maps of any kind sadly being omitted. show less

This book is sub-titled The Age of Nur al-Din and Saladin for good reason. The text is clearly translated and is quite focussed on the Islamic World in the time period given. Ibn al-Athir is a very responsible guide to his area, and is often quoted from this translation.
The Author is Islamic and was a good source up to his death in 1233. He was not much interested in the Crusaders them selves, and his treatment of European affairs is quite sparse. o, us this work in Conjunction with William show more of Tyre and you'll be reasonably informed. There are no maps, so keep one at hand. The author is more of a Nur al-Din fan than a man in love with Saleh-al-Din. show less