From Afghanistan from before 9/11 to the return of the Taliban to power in 2021, the first full accounting of that entire era, combining previously published dispatches and new reporting.
Reading Anderson’s early dispatches is like stepping into a time capsule ... One of the remarkable aspects of Anderson’s reporting is its scope of perspective as well as time ... As deeply humane and profoundly rendered as any I’ve read about Afghanistan, or any other war ... A monument to both good intentions and folly, a humbling reminder that the ball keeps on bouncing.
Some of those who’ve read the first book may find it annoying that Mr. Anderson’s new collection reprints all the essays from the older one. More generous readers will forgive the author, whose intention is to offer a complete portrait of 'the American enterprise' in Afghanistan—'from its dramatic beginning all the way to its hapless end.' In this, he is successful, taking us from the very first days of the war—when Western reporters in Afghanistan were as clueless of local ways and customs as the men sent there to fight—to the last dismal hours of an American nation-building project ... Descriptions of landscapes, barracks, dining rooms or clothing are meticulously detailed—often a reader will wonder why so much magnification is necessary. The effect sought is cerebral, sometimes too consciously so, most notably in Mr. Anderson’s habit always to end his essays with an ironic or low-key observation. Readers are left to draw their own conclusion. It’s as if it would be too vulgar to express a forthright denouement or endpoint ... The value of Mr. Anderson’s book lies in the opportunity for readers to immerse themselves in 20 years of floundering American history, as seen by a writer with enough of a sense of reality to grasp that the mission in Afghanistan wasn’t merely inevitable but also morally defensible. And yet he also had enough of an understanding of history—and of the primitive beliefs and paranoias of the Afghans—to foresee that the whole project would end in disaster.
