Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within

Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the Wars Within. By Shuja Nawaz. New York Oxford University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-19-547660-6. Photographs. Tables. Notes. Appendixes. Selected bibliography. Index. Pp. xliv, 655. S34.95.

There are relatively few books dedicated to the entire history of the Pakistan Army, and fewer still manage to combine both the political and the military activities of this important institution. The Pakistan Army has, as the tide implies, featured prominendy in the nation's politics. The proximity of its vast and often hostile neighbour, India, and the difficulties in establishing a representative democracy in a country so divided by region and ethnicity, meant that the Pakistan Army came to see itself as the bastion of national survival. When what it regarded as corrupt and self-serving civilian politicians appeared to jeopardise the future, the army had litte hesitation about intervention. Despite...