The Savage Border - The Story of the North West Frontier, by Jules Stewart

For centuries, Pakistan's North West Frontier has been seen as a lawless wilderness, which in recent years gave sanctuary to Osama Bin Laden and other fundamentalist Muslim leaders. This, the first significant book on the territory for 40 years, includes first hand accounts of life and soldiering on the Frontier since the Second World War. It also tells how the British and other invaders before and after the Raj, attempted to deal with this unpredictable land of the Pathans.

The book thus provides an in-depth, highly accessible account of life and conflict on the North West Frontier, covering not only the century of British rule since 1849, but also events since the creation of Pakistan in 1947.