State And Tribe In Nineteenth Century Afghanistan

With the exception of two short periods of direct British intervention during the Anglo-Afghan Wars of 1839-42 and 1878-80, the history of nineteenth-century Afghanistan has received little attention from western scholars. This study seeks to shift the focus of debate from the geostrategic concern with Afghanistan as the bone of contention between imperial Russian and British interests to a thorough investigation of the sociopolitical circumstances prevailing within the country. On the basis of unpublished British documents and works by Afghan historians, it lays the groundwork for a better understanding of the political mechanisms at work during the early Muhammadzai era by analysing them both from the viewpoint of the center and the pierphery.

In 1978 and 1979 revolutions in Afghanistan and Iran marked a shift in the balance of power in South West Asia and the world. Then, as now, the world is once more aware that tribalism is no anachronism in a struggle for political and cultural self-determination. This books provides historical and anthropological perspectives necessary to the eventual understanding of the events surrounding the revolutions.

This monograph analyzes the dynamics of Anglo-Afghan relations in the nineteenth century, a case where peripheral factors figured prominently in Britain's drive towards imperial expansion. In 1838 and 1879, British Indian authorities endeavored to conquer Afghanistan. In neither instance did Czarist Russia threaten India or British interests in the region. Instead, evidence suggests that internal political factors within the empire guided British India's policy towards Afghanistan. Thus, this book demonstrates that Anglo-Russian rivalry was not a significant factor in shaping British India's relationship with Afghanistan.

This comprehensive history of Kandahar uses unpublished and fugitive sources to provide a detailed picture of the geographical layout and political, social, ethnic, religious, and economic life in Afghanistan’s second largest city throughout the nineteenth century.

The most important history of Afghanistan ever written (originally written in Persian), Sirāj al-tavārīkh or The History of Afghanistan. It was commissioned as an official national history by the Afghan prince, later amir, Habib Allah Khan (reigned 1901-1919). The author, Fayz Muhammad Khan, better known as "Katib" (The Writer), was a scribe at the royal court. For more than twenty years, he had full access to government archives and oral sources and thus presents an unparalleled picture of the country from its founding in 1747 until the end of the nineteenth century. The roots of much of the fabric of Afghanistan's society today--tribe and state relations, the rule of law, gender issues, and the economy--are elegantly and minutely detailed in this immense work.

Traces the political history of Afghanistan from the sixteenth century to the present, looking at what has united the people as well as the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them.