Enduring the Freedom: A Rogue Historian in Afghanistan

Military Review, Nov-Dec, 2006 by Lester W. Grau

ENDURING THE FREEDOM: A Rogue Historian in Afghanistan, Sean M. Maloney, Potomac Books, Washington, DC, 2005, 336 pages, $27.50.

There have been several books published recently about the current events in Afghanistan. Most are by journalists, who often do a good job with surface reporting but lack the background to do in-depth analysis. Many journalists, for example, have never spent a day in uniform, so they do not really understand the military; nor do they typically have post-graduate degrees in history, anthropology, archaeology, or regional studies, so they do not understand the region. Sean Maloney is a former Canadian Army combat arms officer who teaches in the Canadian Royal Military College War Studies Programme and is the strategic studies adviser to the Canadian Defence Academy.

In Afghanistan, Maloney spent time with Canadian, Dutch, German, Irish, Romanian, and other International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) members, went on operations with the 82d Airborne Division, and met with prominent and ordinary Afghans. He provides a military historian's perspective of Afghanistan's history from before 9/11 through his first visit in 2003.

Enduring the Freedom is a history, a travelogue, a look inside the mysterious ISAF, a positive Canadian view of the U.S. military, and a hoot to read. Maloney is a serious, yet irreverent, historian who gathers his data from the war zone, not the dusty tome. Blunt, uncompromising, and a brilliant analyst without a speck of political correctness about him, he covers the good and the bad with a measured sense of proportionality.

Maloney has provided a good look at the ISAF mission through 2003 and at the changing U.S. mission as Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) began pushing out from the airfields and into the countryside. Not surprisingly, the book is stronger when it discusses ISAF and OEF than it is when discussing the Afghan perspective. That said, I have no real qualms about recommending Enduring the Freedom to historians and military professionals alike.

LTC Lester W. Grau, USA, Retired, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas