The nation that will insist upon drawing a broad line of distinction between the fighting man and the thinking man is liable to find its fighting done by fools and its thinking by cowards.
-- Sir William Francis Butler
The terrorist attacks of September 11th have turned the world's attention to areas of the globe about which we know very little. Ahmed Rashid, who explored Afghanistan's Taliban regime in a previous work, here turns his skills as an investigative journalist to the five Central Asian republics adjacent to Afghanistan. Central Asia is coming to play a vital strategic role in the war on terrorism, but the region also poses new threats to global security.