Part 1: Chapters 3-4 Summary and Analysis

Chapter 3.

In 1993, the Taliban rose to power by defeating their mujahadeen rivals and seizing control of Kandahar, spreading east. By 1996, the Taliban controlled over two-thirds of the country where they enacted odd and outrageous laws, the most harsh against women including forbidding women to work, to be in public without the company of a man, and to suffer in ignorance without the benefit of an education. Unable to cross into Afghanistan due to Taliban bans on foreign visitors, Mortenson was unable to begin to fulfill his promise to the Kirghiz until the terrorist attacks that took place on September 11, 2001.

Mortenson would begin his first trip into Afghanistan in December of 2001 by traveling over Pakistan's Grand Trunk Highway, a dangerous road through the Khyber Pass. Once he reached Afghanistan, Mortenson moved through territory littered with debris of Afghanistan's...