Updated: January 2003

"Khalid Hadi told me he had taken the Mullah Omar photo eight years before. I knew that there were no recent pictures of the man; surely there was value in a photo of the mystery man who had banned photography and provided a haven to al-Qaeda." —Edward Grazda for Vanity Fair

"The book is divided into five well-conceived chapters, with the chapter introductions, the captions, and the photographs themselves leaving an overall impression of death, destruction, and hopelessness. Some of the photographs of the dead are quite graphic and disturbing. Dannin...here exercises careful editorial control, offering a fairly balanced spread of photographs over five decades and between urban Kabul and the countryside. Recommended for public libraries." —Library Journal

"...the book presents an Afghanistan in crisis, showing a lot of the dark side but with enough cultural snippets, such as Luc Delahaye's coquettish sequence of schoolgirls peeking through head scarves. Using so many photographer, with so many viewpoints and styles adds interest..." —Christian Science Monitor

"While most Americans couldn't locate Afghanistan on a map before 9/11, Magnum photographers had been visitng the country regularly almost since the photo agency's inception. With photographs dating back to the Forties, George Rodger, Marc Riboud, Steve McCurry, Abbas and several others show the devastating"... effects of war on the Afghan people. Personal essays by the photographers give historical background to this essential book." —Photo District News

"Afghanistan's people share a complicated and turbulent history at the center of a political quagmire. Since World War II, Magnum photojournalists...have made history chronicling this country's tumultuous government, civil unrest, and religious friction. This stunning book...is a vital reference for both social historians and photography fanatics alike." —Gotham