In the Line of Fire: A Memoir
Pervez Musharraf
Musharraf too, in this memoir that won him a handsome advance and was published in 2006 to a glitzy marketing tour, adopts a saga-like approach, tying his story to the story of Pakistan. He makes the point most emphatically by remembering how he made the journey from Delhi to West Pakistan in 1947, a little boy clutching in his arms money for the new country’s treasury. In this expansive book, he also writes about his first crush. But most of his ire is aimed at Pakistan’s politicians and he bemoans at great length the loss of the 1990s to democratically elected governments. It’s a challenge, put it next to Bhutto’s book and try to merge the two accounts of Pakistan’s recent history into a coherent narrative.

Frontline Pakistan:The Struggle with Militant Islam
Zahid Hussain
Hussain, a veteran journalist, published this account of the pervasive reach of extremists in government, military and civil society in early 2007. And given the rapidity with which extremism made itself violently felt thereafter — in the regular suicide attacks, in the Lal Masjid standoff and in the threats to Pakistan’s territorial sovereignty in Swat and Waziristan — it was chillingly prescient.

Military Inc.: Inside pakistan’s Military Economy
Ayesha Siddiqa
To understand how pervasive the Pakistani military’s presence is in social and economic life, read Siddiqa’s detailed account of the fauji’s business interests.

The Idea of Pakistan
Stephen P. Cohen
Along with Ian Talbot’s Pakistan: A Modern History, this provides all the backgrounder one would require to gain a historical and referential perspective on the political and societal changes unfolding in Pakistan.

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