The recent history of Afghanistan is the focus of this harrowing autobiography by Taliban member Abdul Salam Zaeef. Countering conventional accounts that the Taliban emerged in the 1990s, Zaeef maintains that the movement existed as early as the 1970s. The author traces his rises in the Taliban to his appointment as ambassador to Pakistan in 2000, and his subsequent arrest and imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay afte September 11 and the fall of the Taliban regime. He describes the psychological and physical torture he and his fellow prisoners suffered at the hands of American soldiers and concludes with a vehement denuciation of American policy in Afghanistan. However partisan the book may be, it is a valuable addition to the literature on contemporary Afghan history.