Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics

For anyone interested in the history of Afghanistan, its culture, and people, you cannot go wrong in reading this book.

Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and Politics By Martin Ewans This short and quick read easily lives up to its title. This would be a good introductory book to anyone who wants an overview of the history and culture that is very much alive in Afghanistan today. The citizens of Afghanistan have a very keen sense of their history and will talk about conflicts between tribes that happened decades or centuries ago as if they were yesterday. May of the conspiracy theories that this book says Afghans hold to the influence of Britian, the US or Russia on their lives have been echoed by the interpreters that I had here in country. The book is good for anyone who wants an overview of Afghanistan's history in the last two centuries. While the book touches on Alexander and Genghis Khan, it does not give them nearly the treatment of some other books. Likewise, its treatment of the events of the Great Game between Russian and Britian are complete, but it rarely goes into detail on any particular event. This makes the book good for providing an overall framework for anyone looking to get deeper into the history and politics of the region.

This book can be recommended to anyone interested in the history of the general mess now known as Afghanistan. In addition to being scholarly (which some people call "dry") and concise, Ewans, as a former diplomat, tends to be honest about many issues which Westerners were previously clueless or not bothered about, or which they deliberately "fudged up", so as to justify their anti-Soviet policy. That is commendable, on part of a Western writer. But it may be too late to do any good now. Before "9/11" most Western books on this subject tended to be hysterically biased in favour of the "Mujahideen" Islamic war of resistance, funded by capitalism; now of course, ever since that fateful day of 9/11, on which Bin Laden and his Taliban cohorts gave the West a tremendous kick in the backside, the books are hysterical in a different way. Actually, I agree more with the latter type of hysteria (and not at all the former). It has more than an element of truth in it. In this review, I take the opportunity to add my personal experience to Mr. Ewans' narrative and thereby enhance it. I belong in Peshawar, on the Pakistani side of the ethnic Pashtun (the basic majority Afghan ethnicity, from which it the word "Afghan" is derived) area. This area was conquered and split, by the British, from Afghanistan and added to their Indian Empire under a treaty finalised in 1893. For that I am thankful in more ways than one. I am half-English, and twenty years ago, as a college student, was a Marxist supporter of Afghanistan's Soviet supported Communist "Saur" Revolution. Though experience has since nullified most of my beliefs in Marxism and also disillusioned me regarding the nature of Afghan communists - who have proven to be no different than their opposite brethren, the truth of what happened in that war between the Soviets and the American Jihadist Islamic resistance can not be altered. Many Western writers - now that they see what the policies of their countries have led to - try to absolve their countries of blame by dismissing the Afghan episode as resulting from a "Vietnam revenge" policy of the US. That is childish to say the least; however, it may be the best excuse they can find, since pre-9/11 Western opinion in this regard was that they were "freeing" the Afghan people so that the latter "could live freely according to their own culture and religion..." But comparisons with Vietnam are also false and futile. Vietnam's story was the fight of an awakened people for national and economic self-determination against capitalist enslavement; Whereas Afghanistan's was the fight of one of the most misguided, subnormal, gladly backward and morose minded people the world has ever seen - against the benefits of social modernisation; and in this the Afghans were aided by criminal modern world powers who thought that doing so would further their greedy geopolitical objectives ("9/11" proved otherwise though! The USSR, Capitalism's "greatest enemy" is nowhere to be seen

Just what I was looking for. From its first beginnings till the Taliban takeover. It will show "W" why it will never be an independent country. I found it a captivating read up until the Taliban invasion. From there I have other books. I would recommend this as serving to present the history of Afghanistan.

The author shares a vast knowledge of Afghanistan. A more thorough discussion of the Shinwari tribe and Waziristan would have been useful. The Ghaznavid gold dinar, dated 1011 C.E. depicted in Plate 1, appears to have been struck in Neishabur, though the inscription is not clear where the mint is located. Nadir Shah Afshar's conquest of what was to become Afghanistan in 1747 is brief; however, the discussion of the 20th C. Nadir Shah Abdali is more than adequate.