it is a very bad idea to invade afghanistan; but as many authors have discovered, it’s often a very good idea to write about it.
Afghanistan may be one of the poorest countries in the world, but it has produced a surprisingly rich literary vein, ranging from its own traditions of poetry and epics, to great memoirs and some of the best travel books ever. written. . more recently, you’ve seen a handful of exceptional non-fiction about the Taliban era and today’s disastrous war.
You are reading: Books on afghanistan history
One of the great pleasures of writing my new book, The Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan 1839-42, was spending four years mining the library. here are 10 of my best personal moments.
1. the baburnama of babur
Babur, the founder of the Mughal dynasty, was a semi-nomadic warlord from Central Asia who not only established the Mughal dynasty in India, but also wrote one of the most fascinating diaries ever written by a great ruler. In its pages, he opens his soul with a pepys-like directness and uninhibition, comparing the fruits and animals of India and Afghanistan with as much curiosity as he records his impressions of falling in love with men or marrying women, or the differing pleasures of opium and wine. typical is his description of falling in love with a teenager in the herat bazaar: “before this he had never felt desire for anyone… in the throes of love he wandered bareheaded and barefoot through the alleys and streets and gardens and orchards, without paying attention to acquaintances or strangers, oblivious to oneself and to others”.
2. khushal khan khattak divan poems
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Khushhal Khan was a tribal leader who rebelled against Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in the late 17th century and eluded his armies as they pursued him through the passes of the Hindu Kush. In many ways, he was a kind of Afghan William Wallace, the medieval Scottish freedom fighter; but unlike wallace, khushhal khan was also a great poet:
or, more succinctly:
3. charles masson of afghanistan: explorer, archaeologist, numismatist, and intelligence agent by gordon whitteridge
masson, a brilliant deserter from the east indian artillery company, was the first british to explore afghanistan on foot and became the father of afghan archaeology, until his former teachers discovered his true identity and blackmailed him to become a secret agent.
4. travel to bokhara: an indus voyage to lahore and a voyage to cabool, tartary & persia by alexander burnes
Burnes was an energetic, spirited and witty young Highland Scot whose skill in languages earned him a swift rise in the East India Company. He led two exploration expeditions in Afghanistan, both nominally commercial, but actually political. His journey across the Indus to Lahore, and then to the then almost completely unknown Muslim emirates of central Asia, was one of the celebrated feats of Victorian travel and exploration, and later became the subject of one of his books. of most famous trips. it was also one of the opening moves that defined the big game. because Burnes was not really traveling as a diplomat, not for pleasure, not even for academic curiosity. He had been sent by the Governor General of India, who in turn was acting on orders from Downing Street, as a spy for the East India Company. Duly appointed lieutenant governor during the disastrous British occupation after 1839, on November 2, 1841 his house was attacked and he was hacked to death trying to escape in Afghan dress.
5. a diary of the disasters in afghanistan 1841-2 by florentia sale
lady sale was possibly the only british to come out of the first afghanistan war with her reputation improved. she came with an unmarried daughter, seeds from her agra garden, and a grand piano. She survived the retreat from Kabul, with a musket ball to her shoulder and, in due time, she led a jailbreak of her fellow hostages. her tombstone reads: “here lies all that could die from the sale of ladies.”
6. the road to oxiana by robert byron
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byron was a brave traveler, a scholarly art historian and a connoisseur of civilizations. above all, he was a prose writer whose chiseled beauty has haunted English travel literature ever since. Byron had a remarkable ability to evoke places, to bring an entire world to life in a single unexpected image, to pull a perfect sentence out of thin air with the ease of a child catching a butterfly. The visual precision of Oxiana’s writing, combined with his ridiculous comedies, scholarly essays, and fierce passion for his subject, a search for the central Asian roots of Islamic architecture, has led to this account of a journey to Persia and Afghanistan. in 1933-4 being recognized as the best of all pre-war travel books. as paul fussell neatly put it: “what ulysses is to the interwar novel, and what the wasteland is to poetry, the road to oxiana is to the travel book.”
7. the looming tower by lawrence wright
wright’s acclaimed book contains by far the most comprehensive biographical portrait of al qaeda’s central figures and how they took root in afghanistan. it’s also a beautifully written and wonderfully compelling narrative. Wright is especially revealing about bin Laden’s own personality: his naïveté, egalitarianism, and startling austerity: a rare example of a Saudi billionaire prepared to step into the rigors of Afghanistan, taking on hard manual labor and living in stark, stark poverty. remains the best of the many 9/11 books.
8. taliban and descent into chaos by ahmed rashid
Ahmed Rashid, a fearless reporter and authority on Afghanistan politics, came to world attention after 9/11 when his Taliban book was recognized as virtually the only serious book on the regime that had harbored al-Qaeda. as a result, it quickly sold almost 1.5 million copies in 26 languages. its sequel, the brilliant and passionate descent into chaos emphasizes the degree to which “the us-led war on terror has left in its wake a world far more dangerous than the one that existed on that momentous day in 2001… afghanistan now stares into the abyss of state collapse, despite billions of dollars in aid, 45,000 western soldiers and the deaths of thousands of people the taliban have made a dramatic comeback… the international community had an extended window of opportunity several years to help the Afghan people – failed to take advantage of it.”
9. taliban poetry by alex strick van linschoten
Afghanistan has a long tradition of epic poetry celebrating resistance to foreign invasion and occupation. This collection is remarkable as a literary project: it uncovers a vein of war poetry few will know existed, and introduces us to Wardak’s black-turbaned Wilfred Owens for the first time. but it is also politically important: humanizing the aesthetic aspirations and emotions of the fighters of a much-caricatured and still little-understood movement that is about to defeat yet another foreign occupation.
10. kabul cables by sherard cowper-coles
The most important record yet published of the diplomatic wrangling that has accompanied Western forces’ encirclement of Afghanistan since the 2002 invasion. It’s also the best account I’ve ever read of how post-colonial colonialism really works, exposing the mix of arrogance, overconfidence, and rudderless hesitation that has defined the current occupation.
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