The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan's northwest territories has a long and violent past. Through a collage of historical narrative and ethnographic research, Benjamin D. Hopkins and Magnus Marsden counter the stereotypes and simplistic assessments that obscure a more accurate picture of this frontier, at the same time exposing the web of difficulties now facing local and international actors.

This border region is anything but an isolated depot rife with radical terrorists and tribesmen. The frontier is rich with meaning, influenced by centuries of development by its inhabitants and their conceptions of those who operate outside their world. "Fragments of the Afghan Frontier" provides a deeper understanding of this evolving region, which grows more and more significant as the West steps up its counterterrorist campaigns.