The Bhutto Dynasty: The Struggle for Power in Pakistan

by Owen Bennett-Jones Narrated by Michael Page

Overview

A major new investigation into the Bhutto family, examining their influence in Pakistan from the colonial era to the present day.



The Bhutto family has long been one of the most ambitious and powerful in Pakistan. But politics has cost the Bhuttos dear. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, widely regarded as the most talented politician in the country's history, was removed from power in 1977 and executed two years later, at the age of fifty-one. Of his four children, three met unnatural deaths: Shahnawaz was poisoned in 1985 at the age of twenty-seven; Murtaza was shot by the police outside his home in 1996, aged forty-two; and Benazir Bhutto, who led the Pakistan Peoples Party and became Prime Minister twice, was killed by a suicide bomber in Rawalpindi in 2007, aged fifty-four.



Drawing on original research and unpublished documents gathered over twenty years, Owen Bennett-Jones explores the turbulent existence of this extraordinary family, including their volatile relationship with British colonialists, the Pakistani armed forces, and the United States.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

In this intimate portrait of both the Bhutto family and Pakistani politics, Bennett­Jones delivers a complex Shakespearean tale of loyalty and feuding, insecurity and arrogance, and jealousy and solidarity spanning three generations.”—Foreign Affairs, Best Books of 2020

“Bennett-Jones masterfully weaves together the disparate strands of the modern, cosmopolitan, and urbane Bhutto with his strong nationalistic streak on the one hand and a socialist yearning on the other.”—Shuja Nawaz, Friday Times

“[A] magisterial and vivid account of the Bhutto dynasty.”—Andrew Whitehead, The Wire

“Students of geopolitics and South Asia will find this a valuable book.”—Kirkus Reviews

“The Bhutto Dynasty is an excellent study that is far more than a chronicle of the Bhutto family, although that history is fascinating enough. Bennett-Jones’ book provides the reader with a superb case study of civil[1]military relations in the modern state. The Bhutto Dynasty is essential reading for any historian of Pakistan as well as for any scholar interested in civil-military relations in South Asia.”—Intelligence and National Security

“This book is a wonderful read. Bennett-Jones occasionally gets carried away recounting a colourful story, but that only makes the book more fun. It’s easy to see the Bhuttos’ attraction, at their height, for Pakistani voters, and equally easy to see how they came undone.”—Teresita C. Schaffer, Survival

“A gripping and timely take on a family and a country—past, present and future.”—Mishal Husain, broadcaster for BBC News

“Bennett-Jones has repeatedly shown himself to be one of the most perceptive, impartial and knowledgeable journalists reporting Pakistan. Rigorous, authoritative and readable, full of both insights and investigation, this new work is an important addition to the literature of a very important, and often very misunderstood, state.”—Jason Burke, author of Al-Qaeda

“Blending the Bhutto family’s eventful history with that of the broader political developments, Bennett-Jones’ exploration is riveting and thought-provoking in equal measure.”—Sarah Ansari, author of Boundaries of Belonging

Kirkus Reviews

2020-09-16
The history of the multigenerational Pakistani political family that continues to influence events in the nation today.

It has long been assumed that the assassination of Pakistan’s prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, in 2007 was undertaken at the hands of the army. However, former BBC correspondent Bennett-Jones lays the blame instead at the door of the Taliban, which objected to her liberalizing policies and support for women and religious minorities. Even before the Taliban, Osama bin Laden himself threatened her. (Shortly before her death, she sent a note to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, writing of a military and political rival, “I would hold Musharraf responsible.”) The author’s account of Bhutto’s assassination by suicide bomb, though gruesome, is comprehensive. So is his study of the Bhutto lineage, which well merits the title of dynasty, beginning with the pre-Partition Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto, who, “like many Indian aristocrats, readily accepted the authority of his colonial masters, working closely with them and even aping their habits.” His son Zulfikar Bhutto became prime minister while Benazir was studying abroad; he “articulated Pakistan’s aspiration to be a successful country independent of the West, leading the Islamic world and matching Indian power, both conventional and nuclear.” When she came to power, serving as prime minister twice, Benazir placed the army and democracy in stark contrast, though she was a practitioner of realpolitik enough to know that she would have to yield to the military’s demands for power and essentially unlimited funding. The issues that each of these rulers contended with, Bennett-Jones argues, are central to the development of a Pakistan that, while ostensibly democratic, is never far away from military rule. The author enumerates some of the controversies that the Bhutto family engendered, not just as political reformers, but also as adherents to the Sufi branch of Islam. Bennett-Jones closes by identifying Bhutto scions who might continue the lineage into Pakistani politics, one of them a “poet, visual artist and sometimes cross-dressing performer in San Francisco.”

Students of geopolitics and South Asia will find this a valuable book.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940178954058
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	10/27/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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