A look at Pakistan, its culture, customs, history, and contemporary life.

Pakistan is a land with a unique history, formed by migrating peoples who have left their footprint in its diverse cultures, languages, literature, food, dress, and folklore. The country is besieged by bad news, but despite the political turmoil the everyday life of its people is more stable, rich, and rewarding than the media headlines would lead you to believe. A myriad local festivals and celebrations and a vibrant cultural life go unremarked. Pakistan has the eighth-largest standing army in the world and is the only Muslim-majority nation to possess nuclear weapons, but few know that it is also the home of two unique schools of art. This complex nation consists of various ethnic groups, each with its own individual cultures and subcultures, but which are unified by the common values of hospitality, honor, and respect for elders. Pakistani society has extremes of wealth and poverty, and daily life for most people is full of difficulties, yet everyone knows how to cope with crises. Creative and adaptable, Pakistanis are among the most self-reliant people in the world, bouncing back after major catastrophes. Culture Smart! Pakistan takes you behind the headlines and introduces you to many of the country's little-known traditions. It describes the vitally important cultural and historical background, shows you how modern Pakistanis live today, and offers crucial advice on what to expect and how to behave in different circumstances. This is an extraordinary country of enterprising, tough, and passionate people. Earn their trust and you will be rewarded many times over.

There are millions of Pakistanis living throughout the world, and from time to time they will need medical, spiritual, and psychological care. This can only be successfully given if their culture is understood. My thought is that I begin my book, Understanding Pakistani Culture, with an explanation that I am from Pakistan and I now live in the United States. I am a spiritual counselor who visits patients in hospitals to help them, and sometimes I encounter patients born in Pakistan. Because their customs are often so different from US customs, those wishing to help do not understand their needs. My thought has been to write a book about Pakistani customs to bring forward the understanding.

Describes the etiquette and customs in Pakistan, covering a wide range of topics and providing behavioral and language guidance for traveling, socializing, doing business, and other situations, and includes a cultural quiz and a resource list.

In the past decade Pakistan has become a country of immense importance to its region, the United States, and the world. With almost 200 million people, a 500,000-man army, nuclear weapons, and a large diaspora in Britain and North America, Pakistan is central to the hopes of jihadis and the fears of their enemies. Yet the greatest short-term threat to Pakistan is not Islamist insurgency as such, but the actions of the United States, and the greatest long-term threat is ecological change. Anatol Lieven's book is a magisterial investigation of this highly complex and often poorly understood country: its regions, ethnicities, competing religious traditions, varied social landscapes, deep political tensions, and historical patterns of violence; but also its surprising underlying stability, rooted in kinship, patronage, and the power of entrenched local elites. Engagingly written, combining history and profound analysis with reportage from Lieven's extensive travels as a journalist and academic, Pakistan: A Hard Country is both utterly compelling and deeply revealing.

The book explores some of the central issues in the current discourse on transitional cultures, in a world increasingly dominated by technological innovations and rapidly changing values. Critiquing modernity as a Euro-centric ideology which has little relevance or meaning in the context of cultures with different experiences of history, sensitivities, and belief systems, the book presents the traditional perspective, rooted in perennial wisdom, as an alternative framework. Here not only do art and architecture have a positive and constructive role and function, but human endeavour generally can find a purpose and direction.

"Covers ten centuries of history, with emphasis on events and people central to creation of the Pakistani Muslim identity and to the creation of the modern state."--Publisher website: http://www.abc-clio.com/products/overview.aspx?productid=109918&viewid=1.

Pakistan. Hot food, heavenly mountains and Hindi pop tunes. Jingling buses and jostling bazaars. Almost inexhaustible trekking potential. Footprint Northern Pakistan Travel Guide 1st Edition is part of the "New Look' Footprint package bringing together state-of-the- art presentation and superb content for the benefit of travellers. Includes ......

The book is a modern take on the subject of the tribes and other socio-ethnic groups that inhabit Pakistan within the wider academic framework in the field of social sciences. While there has already been work carried out on the Pashtun and Afghan tribal territories and peoples, this text describes in detail the tribal societies of the whole of Pakistan-their origins, history, social profile and administrative structure. It also discusses these issues within the context of the areas' geostrategic significance, historical processes, social ideology and institutional structure. The narrative promotes an understanding of the disruptive effects of external and internal factors and the distortions caused in these societies by the introduction of institutional, legal, political and social reforms which failed to take into account their deep-seated cultural sensitivities. It utilizes a wide variety of sources--both modern and old-to present a concise work on an extremely complex and detailed topic dealing with caste, ethnicity, socio-economic status, and tribal enmities and affinities. The book contains maps of the areas along with brief geo-specific descriptions to acquaint the reader with the terrain and topography of the region, which play an important role in the lives of these societies.