Product Description Pakistan's transformation from a country once projected as a model of Muslim enlightenment to a state now threatened by an Islamist take over dominates the headlines. Many account for the change by pointing to Pakistan's controversial partnership with the United States since 9/11; others see it as a consequence of Pakistan's long history of authoritarian rule, which has marginalized liberal opinion and left the field open for inroads by the religious right. Farzana Shaikh argues that while external influences and domestic politics have unquestionably shaped the direction of change, the country's social and political decline is rooted primarily in uncertainty about the meaning of Pakistan and the significance of 'being Pakistani'. She shows how this has pre-empted a consensus on the role of Islam in the public sphere, which has encouraged the spread of political Islam. It has also widened the gap between personal piety and public morality, corrupting the country's economic foundations and tearing apart its social fabric. More ominously still, it has given rise to a new and dangerous symbiosis between the country's powerful armed forces and Muslim extremists. They have been rival contenders in the struggle to redefine the meaning of Pakistan but their convergence, enhanced by internal and foreign conflicts, has led to the militarization of society and the Islamization of the military. Drawing on her earlier work on the origins of Pakistan, Shaikh demonstrates how the culture and ideology that constrained Indo-Muslim politics in the years leading to Partition in 1947 have left their mark on the country. In this broad yet discriminating study, these insights from history are skillfully deployed to better understand Pakistan's troubled present. Review "Intellectually acute, impressively researched, and strongly argued."-Anatol Lieven The American Prospect "Thought-provoking... Those interested in helping shape the country's future will come away understanding why now is the time to move on with clarity."- Middle East Journal "A well documented, provocative study...of considerable interest to scholars and foreign policy specialists."-Choice "Shaikh's knowledge is encyclopedic, her methods of analysis simple but intense, her writing beautifully lucid there is nobody better to explain what Barack Obama calls the most dangerous place in the world."-Ahmed Rashid, author of Descent into Chaos: How the War Against Islamic Extremism is Being Lost in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia "[Afghanistan] is also -- as Farzana Shaikh makes clear in her brilliant new book, Making Sense of Pakistan -- just another victim of the batty, contorted rivalry between New Delhi and Islamabad for subcontinental influence."- The Guardian "A scholarly and erudite study of the competition to define and establish a "national" identity for Pakistan."- H-Asia "Farzana Shaikh has analyzed the contemporary dilemmas and predicaments of Pakistan with skill and finesse. By far the best book I have read on our neighboring country in recent years."-Owen Bennett Jones, author of Pakistan: Eye of the Storm About the Author Farzana Shaikh, most recently a Visitor at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, has taught at the universities of Cambridge, SOAS, Pavia and Basle. She is the author of Community and Consensus in Islam: Muslim Representation in Colonial India, 1860-1947 (Cambridge University Press).