Seen through the lens of the outsider, Pakistan has often been reduced to a caricature. Its diversity and resilience have rarely figured in the single-issue focus of recent literature on the country, be it journalistic or scholarly. This book seeks to present an alternate paradigm and to contribute a deeper understanding of the country's dynamics that can help explain why Pakistan has confounded all the doomsday scenarios. It brings together an extraordinary array of Pakistan's leading experts including Ahmed Rashid, Ayesha Jalal and Zahid Hussain and practitioners such as the book's editor, Maleeha Lodhi, Akbar Ahmed and Munir Akram in a unique volume to debate their country's strengths and weaknesses and offer ways out of its current predicament. The book provides a picture of how Pakistanis see themselves and their country's faultlines and spells out ways to overcome these. Pakistan's political, economic, social, foreign policy and governance challenges are assessed in detail. So too is the complex interplay between domestic developments and external factors including great power interests that are so central to the Pakistan story and explain the vicissitudes in its fortunes. The book argues that Pakistan and its people have the capacity to transform their country into a stable modern Muslim state but bold reforms will be needed to bring about this outcome.
