I just finished former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's book Reconciliation. It was a project she began while living in exile in Dubai and finished shortly after her return to Pakistan on October 18th, 2007. Mrs. Bhutto had many enemies in Pakistan and on the very day of her arrival there was an assassination attempt along her parade route in Karachi. Mrs. Bhutto survived the attack, but not the one that followed on December 27th in Rawalpindi. She was the head of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP), the largest pro-democracy political party in her country (and according to Mrs. Bhutto, the only one with nation-wide support).
The book is divided into several sections including a personal account of the events of the 18th, her own moderate interpretation of Islam (in which she quotes from the Quran to support her views on democracy, women's rights, and peace), a history of democracy in the Muslim world (and how the West has undermined democratic movements), a political history of Pakistan, and her recommendations for the future.
As Fareed Zakaria said in his review for the New York Times:
Washington should arrange to have the portions of the book about Islam republished as a separate volume and translated into several languages. It would do more to win the battle of ideas within Islam than anything an American president could ever say.I found myself wondering why Muslim countries haven't had democracy since the days of the Prophet if her interpretation of the Quran is accurate. If Islam encourages Muslims to think, read, and interpret (ijtihad) the Quran for themselves; tolerate the religious views of others; treat women as equals (the Prophet's wife, Islam's first convert, worked outside of the home) then how did the Muslim world get into its current state of repressive governments, radical Islamist movements, and religious intolerance? The West has played a role by undermining democratic movements (especially during the Cold War), but an equally destructive force comes from the war that Muslims wage against each other. Mrs. Bhutto sees this as the more dangerous trend because Muslims do not often acknowledge it.
Benazir remarks that the US has given much more money to the dictatorships of Pakistan than it has to its civilian governments. This is because dictatorships like Zia's and Musharraf's have convinced the US that they stand between the US and an Islamist Pakistan. Only by supporting them can the US hope to keep terrorist elements down in Pakistan. Mrs. Bhutto doesn't agree with this assessment and states that Pakistan's dictators have always exaggerated the threat from the FATA and Northwest Frontier tribal areas. What these men are actually after is power, and with American support they can suppress opposition parties and strengthen the military (which is also legitimizing since Pakistan fears India first and foremost). Since Benazir Bhutto's death, the PPP has formed a coalition government in Pakistan and, like usual, the US is making more mistakes in its aid decisions (the US has given $5.4 billion to Pakistan since 2001 and only millions have gone to strengthening civil society).
I think Reconciliation is better than the sort of book you would expect a politician running for office to write. Sure, she sort of ignores all the corruption charges against her and her husband, and that the Bhutto family treats the PPP like their personal property, but she does criticize current Muslim governments in her book, and I imagine this was more substantive than say, Hillary Clinton's "autobiography." However, I never assumed this book was unbiased and maybe after I finish the FSOE, I'll read Musharraf's book to get a more complete picture.
