FIGHTING FOR AFGHANISTAN

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FIGHTING FOR AFGHANISTAN

A Rogue Historian at War

by Sean M. Maloney

$42.95 List Price

$34.46 Member Price

Full Description:

Sean Maloney, the first Canadian military historian to go into battle since the Korean War, brings the intensity of near-fatal experiences in southern Afghanistan to his description of events in 2006 when the Taliban insurgency threatened to overwhelm the U.S.-led coalition. He explains how the shift from small-scale guerilla attacks and urban terrorism to near-conventional warfare caught everyone by surprise and forced a small, under-equipped Canadian battle group into a desperate series of battles that ultimately saved Kandahar City. Maloney tells exactly what happened at all levels, from infantry company to battle group to brigade headquarters. He is the first to provide such details and give historical context, while helping readers understand the difficulties involved in complex coalition operations.

Sean M. Maloney is an associate professor at Royal Military College of Canada and historical adviser to the Chief of the Land Staff for the war in Afghanistan. He also is the author of Confronting the Chaos and Enduring the Freedom, about his earlier journeys to Afghanistan.

For more information click here to view the author's website and here to view the author's blog.

Praise for Fighting for Afghanistan

“Overall, I found the book interesting and provocative. The writing is crisp and moves quickly. I strongly recommend the book to military historians, military practitioners, and the general public. In the end, it provides an excellent snapshot of COIN in the Afghan theatre of operation during Spring/Summer 2006.”

— Revue Militaire Canadienne / Canadian Military Journal, Spring 2012

“A book by a specialist that will be best appreciated by other specialists, but Maloney also provides general readers with a bird's-eye view of how the war in Afghanistan has been fought.”

— Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2011

“Why NATO is all acronyms and no fight. A devastating portrait of combat directed by bureaucrats.”

—BING WEST, bestselling author of The Village, The Strongest Tribe, and The Wrong War

“Dr. Sean Maloney has written a compelling and engaging account, combining first-person combat experience with the insights of a military historian and an Afghan veteran. Maloney provides an in-depth account that goes to the heart of what really happened in the most intense fighting of the current Afghanistan conflict.”

—DAVID ISBY, author of Afghanistan: Graveyard of Empires

“Sean Maloney has produced another tour de force! His Fighting for Afghanistan shows the problems and pitfalls of coalition warfare using the philosophy of ‘fix the problem, not the blame.’ This is a first-rate, first-person, down-in-the-weeds account of coalition efforts in Afghanistan’s southland in 2006. Maloney writes contemporary history that reads well. His insight and concern for soldiers and humanity are evident behind his factual, often acerbic, but always enjoyable writing style. Encore, encore!”

—LES GRAU, author and editor of The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost

“This is a superb micro-history of one part of a multiphase war—written not from 10,000 feet but from ground level—by a combat-trained historian who looks people, conflicts, personalities, and suffering in the eye . . . and spares the reader no vital fact or observation.”

—SENATOR HUGH SEGAL (Conservative, Ontario), former chair of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, twice chair of the Special Senate Committee on Anti Terrorism, and a Senior Fellow at the Queen's University School of Policy Studies