Asia Society Northern California is pleased to co-sponsor this event with the World Affairs Council of Northern California. From the outside, the conflict in Afghanistan has been painted as a war between pro-democracy forces and Islamist fanaticism. It is, however only one small part of the larger and much older conflict — between Kabul and rural Afghanistan, between the attraction of the modern world on the one hand and traditional Afghanistan on the other.

Drawing on his Afghan and Muslim roots, Tamim Ansary (author of West of Kabul, East of New York) reveals a centuries-old internal Afghan struggle the world has never fully understood. Ansary sheds light on a country desperately trying to find its identity, while undermined by its own demons, plagued by a 40-60 year cycle of invasion by outside forces, and constantly at the center of an ill-informed international political debate.