Media Reviews
This book finally dispels many of the Cold War myths surrounding the Soviet-Afghan war. By using the testimonials of Soviet politicians, soldiers, and advisers in Afghanistan, it offers the most nuanced, sympathetic, and comprehensive account yet of the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. -- Rory Stewart
An outstanding book ... these accounts provide a fascinating insight not only into the war but also into Soviet society * THES *
A splendid read, full of interesting material, and essential for anyone trying to understand the Russians * BBC History Magazine *
This bids fair to become the standard history, but it is a kind of parable too. Here is a battery of facts, intervoven with human stories, soldiers' tales and a thousand flashes of individual experience gathered in interview. For the mountain of evidence he has assembled before a generation passes away, historians (including Russian historians) will always be grateful; but Braithwaite's immense, urgent project offers more than a history, but a cool and deadly assessment of the mess that Power can get itself into. He never overstates; there is more tragedy here than villainy, more confusion than conspiracy; and the abiding impression is not so much shocking as unutterably sad. The read-across to other nations' wars leaps at you from every page. -- Matthew Parris
More than anything, Afgansty is a powerful warning of the tragic mistakes leaders seem destined to repeat again and again. * Yorkshire Evening Post *
Millions of words - and I do not exaggerate - have been written seeking to explain how and why the Soviet Union collapsed, bringing an end to the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 and probably, the future of communism on this planet. How could the world's second super-power topple like a pack of cards, bringing with it the collapse of the global communist dream? The answer remains debateable; yet I cannot recall any previous book coming closer to a credible analysis than this remarkable work by Sir Rodric Braithwaite - a book glowing with stunning research on how and why the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan failed so disastrously. * Tribune *
Braithwaite vividly portrays the life of the ordinary soldier: the army bullying, the bittersweet songs and ballads, the lure of Afghan markets, the biting cold, the operations where bravery mixed with desperation. * The Times *
Rodric Braithwaite's brilliant study of the Soviets in Afghanistan is filled with such extraordinary personal moments but it never loses sight of its purpose. [...] It is written in the lucid, elegant style of the best of Foreign Office mandarins. It forms the sort of elongated briefing note that a prime minister should devour in his nightly red box. * The Glasgow Herald *
Wouldn't it make a wonderful change if our increasingly youthful and inexperienced political class took the trouble to read this book, grasped that war is always hell, and stopped launching conflicts because of something they saw on TV? * Mail on Sunday *
This is the book every politician, every general, every diplomat contemplating getting into, or out of, Afghanistan should be made to read. It is a book we should have had 10 years ago, and need more than ever today. It is a minor masterpiece. -- Sherard Cowper-Coles * Guardian *
Compelling and topical [...] I hope earnestly that President Obama and David Cameron obtain early copies of this book - and some of the source material accompanying it, particularly some of the sections dealing with Mikhail Gorbachev's agonising process of withdrawing from his war. But anyone who wants an intelligent explanation of how and why we are now in conflict in the same place barely two decades later could do no better than to read Braithwaite's masterful work. -- Victor Sebestyen * The Evening Standard *
It looks set to be the definitive account of the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan [...] from their shared experiences [Russian] veterans of Afghanistan developed a collective sense of identity - the Afgansty of this title. It is their stories, in poems, books and songs, as well as his own interviews, woven in an easy, compelling style, that form the main narrative of this book. * The Sunday Times *
[Braithwaite] is one of the most vivid emotionally engaged diplomats to have turned to the pen. * Financial Times *
Sir Roger Braithwaite, a former British ambassador to Moscow with 60 years of immersion in Russian culture, has amassed a gold mine of sources for this timely study. * Telegraph *
Afgansty is not a tract, it is history - history that needed to be told and deserves to be studied. * Independent Review *
The competence of [the] author cannot be denied. He knows just about everything that needs to be known about the various Soviet institutions. [...] Few Russians and foreigners, apart perhaps from some in the CIA, knew and know as much about the workings of the late Soviet bureaucracy as Rodric Braithwaite. * Literary Review *
[Braithwaite's] account of the Russian military and political establishment in the whirlpool of Afghanistan is as clear as a whistle. * Camden New Journal *
His book has the great merit of treating the episode as a unique and horrific experience, while allowing the reader to draw his own parallels with the British involvement in Afghanistan in the 19th century, and indeed the present day. -- Philip Hensher * Spectator *
Rodric Braithwaite brings the talents of a scholar, diplomat, and writer to the agony of the Soviet misadventure in Afghanistan --Foreign Policy's favourite books of the year -- David E Hottman * Foreign Policy *
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