1947年に英領インド帝国のムスリムたちの祖国として建国された近代国家パキスタン。異なる言語や民族、文化的アイデンティティが複雑に入り組むこの国を理解するには、インダス河沿岸の定住者たちに刻まれた4000年の歴史を避けて通ることはできません。そうした歴史的背景や政治的な側面のみならず、宗教と社会、世界有数の兵力、日常生活、大衆文化、言語と文学、そして対外政策まで広く見渡す一冊です。そしてこの国が抱える課題を明らかにし、未来を展望します。
  

• Considers Pakistan both as a young nation state, created at the end of the British Empire in South Asia, and also as a region with a 4,000 year old history and heritage
• Discusses the roles of religion and society, state and the miliatry, in modern-day Pakistan
• Looks to the future of Pakistan, and the challenges it faces in the twenty first century
• Brings a focus on everyday socio-cultural aspects of people's lives in Pakistan
• Includes a discussion of gender and diaspora within Pakistan

　　　
What is Pakistan? The name refers to a seventy-year-old post-colonial product of the bloodiest partition of territory and population that accompanied the end of British empire in South Asia. But the region of the Indus Valley has a four-thousand-year-old history, and was the site of one of the earliest and greatest riverine civilisations in the world. Although the modern nation of Pakistan as we know it was created as a homeland for the Muslims of British India, it is impossible to understand the complex tapestry of linguistic, ethnic, and cultural identities and tensions of the region without tracing its deep past.
　　　
This Very Short Introduction looks at Pakistan as one of the two nation-states of the Indian sub-continent that emerged in 1947. Pippa Virdee reaches into the ancient past to demonstrate the influence of trajectories of human settlement and civilisation on Pakistan's contemporary political arena, and shows how the longer continuities between the land and its peoples are as important as the short-term changes in the political landscape. She considers Pakistan's religion and society, the state and the military, everyday life, popular culture, languages and literature, as well as Pakistan's relationship with the rest of the world. Virdee also looks to the challenges of the 21st century and the future of Pakistan.