A History of Pakistan and Its Origins (Anthem South Asian Studies)

Pakistan, with almost 200 million residents, is a very important country at the crossroads of the world. I'm glad I don't have to take a test on this fact-filled volume after reading it, but it did an excellent job of filling me in a bit. The main things I came away with are that Pakistan is a very complicated and crisis-ridden country; that Pakis identify themselves as members of one of the four or five linguistic/ethnic groups within the land before they consider themselves Pakistanis; that the country is riddled with corrupt and often murderous politicians; That Pashtunistan, flowing from Pakistan into Afghanstan, could well be an independent nation itself. That Moslem religion (though torn by strife between Shia and Sunni) is the only thing that makes the nation make sense, and that conversational "Urdu" is essentially identical to conversational "Hindi". So if you'd like to learn more about a country struggling to learn English and to be democratic and secular, this is probably the book for you.

Christophe Jaffrelot has compiled a very impressive and detailed account of the history and origins of Pakistan. Those seeking a rich source of academic information will be well-rewarded in reading this work. If you are not already experienced in the history of Pakistan, it might be easier to begin at Chapter 3 "A Fruitless Search for Democracy." It offers a more straight-forward chronological review of the political administrations of Pakistan. Jaffrelot's book reads at the upper college or graduate level, and is a sophisticated presentation of the historical forces that drove Pakistan towards partition, including the religious, political, and economic factors that have shaped the region and its long-standing confrontation with India. Although it is a dense, and packed with details -so by no means the easiest of reading experiences - it is rewarding in its comprehensive review of Pakistani history.