Goodson (international studies, Bentley College) analyzes the civil wars that wracked Afghanistan throughout the 1990s, with a focus on the reasons for state failure in the Central Asian country. After looking at some of the factors that affected Afghanistan as the playing board of the imperial "great game" of Britain and Russia, he turns his attention to the Islamist rebellion against the Soviet-backed Najibullah regime. Here, he ignores the role of the United States in fomenting the destabilization of Afghanistan with imported Islamist rebels, repeatedly implying that the mujahedeen were a purely local institution. He then recognizes that the civil wars that broke out among the former U.S.-backed warlords sounded the death knell for hopes of a stable government until the Taliban swept into the vacuum of power. The chapter on the future of Afghanistan is necessarily dated because of its inability to foresee the U.S. attack on the country and the subsequent installation of the government of Hamid Karzai. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)