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Reviews tagging 'Murder'
The Nine Lives of Pakistan: Dispatches from a Precarious State by Declan Walsh
1 review
mnach's review
adventurous
dark
informative
medium-paced
3.0
The Nine Lives of Pakistan is a ten-year journalistic effort by reporter Declan Walsh. The chapters in the book often recap the lives of prominent individuals from Pakistan’s history. Through their individual stories, the broader history of Pakistan is told.
For someone who has never really delved into Pakistani history, this book is a good primer. And Walsh is a good narrator, never over-assuming the reader’s familiarity with persons and places in Pakistan. Even for recurring characters in the book he would often include a short descriptor to refresh the memory of who that person is. I appreciate that in a book of this type. Sure, it results in paragraphs packed with proper nouns which may seem redundant to more seasoned Pakistani historians, but it offers a reprieve for the uninitiated in the subject.
The stories that stood out the most for me were the ones about the Red Mosque (Abdul Aziz Ghazi), Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Asma Jahangir, and Benazir Bhutto. I enjoyed these stories because they captured interesting personal and interpersonal dynamics. These four people all started their lives in very different places than where they ultimately ended up. It was interesting to read about the evolution of their careers/ideologies/relationships and how through persistence and determination they were able to shift the course of Pakistan.
Beyond these four individuals, there are a handful of other chapters that stand out, such as the one about a Pashtun leader, Anwar Kamal Khan. This chapter was interesting for highlighting how tribal traditions and leaders still carry weight in certain areas of Pakistan (more so than the established secular law of the land). And there was also the chapter about the millionaire politician who takes up the cause of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, Salman Taseer, and his assassination at the hands of his own security guard.
Other chapters meander too much across too many topics, people, and settings, or just don’t capture a good enough tale.
Still, the book represents a good starting point for those interested in learning more about Pakistan. Throughout reading, I often found myself Googling people, places, or events to learn more about what I was reading, often realizing that I was just scratching the surface of a very complex element of Pakistani history. And throughout the book, I also made a shortlist of other books and authors I would like to read in the future, namely The Reluctant Fundamentalist (a book mentioned briefly in the chapter about Abdul Aziz Ghazi) and the author Saadat Hasan Manto (mentioned in the chapter about Muhammad Ali Jinnah and who is said to have captured much of Pakistan’s struggle with partition as part of his short stories, novels, and plays).
For someone who has never really delved into Pakistani history, this book is a good primer. And Walsh is a good narrator, never over-assuming the reader’s familiarity with persons and places in Pakistan. Even for recurring characters in the book he would often include a short descriptor to refresh the memory of who that person is. I appreciate that in a book of this type. Sure, it results in paragraphs packed with proper nouns which may seem redundant to more seasoned Pakistani historians, but it offers a reprieve for the uninitiated in the subject.
The stories that stood out the most for me were the ones about the Red Mosque (Abdul Aziz Ghazi), Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Asma Jahangir, and Benazir Bhutto. I enjoyed these stories because they captured interesting personal and interpersonal dynamics. These four people all started their lives in very different places than where they ultimately ended up. It was interesting to read about the evolution of their careers/ideologies/relationships and how through persistence and determination they were able to shift the course of Pakistan.
Beyond these four individuals, there are a handful of other chapters that stand out, such as the one about a Pashtun leader, Anwar Kamal Khan. This chapter was interesting for highlighting how tribal traditions and leaders still carry weight in certain areas of Pakistan (more so than the established secular law of the land). And there was also the chapter about the millionaire politician who takes up the cause of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy, Salman Taseer, and his assassination at the hands of his own security guard.
Other chapters meander too much across too many topics, people, and settings, or just don’t capture a good enough tale.
Still, the book represents a good starting point for those interested in learning more about Pakistan. Throughout reading, I often found myself Googling people, places, or events to learn more about what I was reading, often realizing that I was just scratching the surface of a very complex element of Pakistani history. And throughout the book, I also made a shortlist of other books and authors I would like to read in the future, namely The Reluctant Fundamentalist (a book mentioned briefly in the chapter about Abdul Aziz Ghazi) and the author Saadat Hasan Manto (mentioned in the chapter about Muhammad Ali Jinnah and who is said to have captured much of Pakistan’s struggle with partition as part of his short stories, novels, and plays).
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Xenophobia, and Murder
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