Learn more about the book (and use promo code 09POD to save 30% off):https://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501773808/a-slow-reckoning/

Read the transcript:https://otter.ai/u/_ZDbUEgeMZgs_eaXLmNJzs8oWVI?utm_source=copy_url

In this episode, we speak with Vasilly Klimentov, author of the new book, A Slow Reckoning: The USSR, the Afghan Communists and Islam. Vassily Klimentov is a SNSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence and a Research Associate at the Geneva Graduate Institute, the institution where he got his PhD in International History.

We spoke to Vasilly about how the Soviet Union’s war in Afghanistan failed in large part due to the Soviets disregard for Islam; how this miscalculation was fueled by communist ideology; and, what parallel lessons the Soviet Union and the United States could have both learned from their occupations of Afghanistan.