FOREIGN authors, both journalists and academics, have brought out a number of books on Pakistan recently. This collection of essays edited by Maleeha Lodhi, a former Pakistani ambassador to Britain and America, is timely and different: a look at Pakistan by seasoned, hard-nosed Pakistanis who know the troubled nation from the inside, toil to set it right and don't always agree with each other. Ms Lodhi's aim is to move the debate about reform in Pakistan beyond the arguments of the past. One essay, "The Past As Present", by Ayesha Jalal, a professor of history at Tufts University, refers to Saadat Hasan Manto, one of the nation's most perceptive 20th-century fiction writers, to isolate the biggest problem. Ordinary Paki stanis, wrote Manto in 1951, were reduced to silently watching the world's richest and most powerful country, the United States, arm one of the poorest and weakest. "My country is poor", Manto asked," but why is it ignorant?" This is a question asked today by all manner of Pakistanis who are concerned about the consequences of American largesse to the Pakistani military with only small scraps of civilian assistance.
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机译：外国作家，包括记者和学者，最近都出版了许多有关巴基斯坦的书籍。巴基斯坦前驻英国和美国大使马勒哈·洛迪（Maleeha Lodhi）编辑的论文集是及时而又与众不同的：由经验丰富，精打细算的巴基斯坦人从内部了解这个陷入困境的国家，辛辛苦苦地将其摆在正确的位置上，并不总是彼此同意。罗迪女士的目的是使有关巴基斯坦改革的辩论超越过去的论点。塔夫茨大学历史学教授阿耶沙·贾拉勒（Ayesha Jalal）撰写的一篇文章，提到了萨达特·哈桑·曼托（Saadat Hasan Manto），他是美国20世纪最富洞察力的小说作家之一，目的是找出最大的问题。普通的帕基斯坦尼斯（Paki stanis）写于1951年的曼托（Manto），被默默地注视着世界上最富有和最强大的国家，美国，这是最贫穷和最弱小的国家之一。曼托问：“我的国家很穷，但为什么它无知？”今天，各种各样的巴基斯坦人都提出了这个问题，他们担心美国的慷慨捐助只给了少量的平民援助，对巴基斯坦军队的后果。
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