The Taliban are one of the most feared organizations in the world. A radical Islamic group that seeks to spread its hard-line interpretation of Islamic law across the world, the Taliban is based in the war-torn nation of Afghanistan. This enthralling book chronicles how the Taliban came to be what it is today, and explains how different the Taliban's radical convictions are from the more moderate Islamic society. The complicated history of Afghanistan is made accessible for the reader, including the struggle for independence, the Soviet-allied government that ruled the country from 1978 to 1992, and the rise of the mujahideen.