Kudos to the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, a North Carolina-based organization for inaugurating a biennial series covering the domestic, economic, and foreign affairs of Pakistan. Though the series won't on its own spur American interest in the Land of the Pure, it should over time provide an easily accessible and authoritative source of information.
It's not as though Pakistan and the United States are strangers. Quite the contrary, as Lawrence Ziring puts it in his introductory chapter, they have a "curious intimacy." Yet, while governments developed strong Cold War ties, the populations, especially the American one, "were for the most part unaware of their government's actions." With the end of the Cold War, those ties are in jeopardy, and Ziring sees bilateral tensions creating dire problems for Islamabad. "Suddenly, Pakistanis began to sense that the United States, heretofore a perceived friend, might be metamorphosizing into a serious foe."
Pakistan deals soberly with major issues: the 1990 general elections, economic policy, Islamization, the Shi'a, Afghanistan, and Kashmir. But why devote a chapter to medical practice and ignore the vital issue of nuclear weapons? Also, such key topics as non-Kashmiri relations with India and regional tensions within Pakistan get shortshrifted. Still, the series has begun with a solid first volume; with luck, future volumes will give these issues the attention they deserve.
