Product Description

A fascinating chronicle of a nation's turbulent history and a must read for anyone interested in the historical evolution of one of today's most dangerous breeding grounds of global terrorism.

Starting in seventh century AD, Martin Ewans shows Afghanistan's early days – of powerful dynasties, fierce tribal rivalries and stunning architectural feats. In Ewans߬ucid and dispassionate prose, a once powerful empire is revealed, whose traditions and political stability have over the years slowly been reduced to ruins.

Martin Ewans carefully and concisely weighs the lessons of history to provide a frank appraisal of Afghanistan's fragile relationship with its neighbouring countries.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #45663 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-01
• Released on: 2002-09-17
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Spanning a period from thousands of years B.C.E. through September 11, 2001, Ewans ambitiously covers an incredible scope of this country's history. While the writing is dry at times, the information goes a long way toward putting the nation's current situation in perspective. Events leading up to and during the Soviet invasion in the late '70s are especially intriguing, as is the explanation of the mujahadin's emergence. More than half the book dwells on 20th-century happenings, with quite a bit of fascinating detail on conditions in Afghanistan during the '90s. Light is shed on how and why the Taliban movement gained power. Discussion on drug trafficking includes statistics on opium production. A five-page epilogue analyzes the impact of 9/11 and subsequent actions taken to bring down the Taliban and to snuff out bin Laden and his Al Qaeda operations. Remarkably thorough text is supplemented by a diagram of the Durrani dynasty; a section of 38 black-and-white glossy plates showing not only historical places and figures, but also early coinage; and 8 geopolitical maps. A former diplomat who served in Afghanistan, Ewans has written a timely and useful book that proffers insight into a country that until recently had been overlooked by most of the world.
Sheila Shoup, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
September 11 drastically changed the fate of this scholarly history of Afghanistan. Before, it might have found an audience in a few college classrooms, but now, few libraries will want to be without it. Ewans begins by glossing over early Afghan history and the triumph by Islam over Buddhism and indigenous religions, and giving a brief overview of the occupations by Genghis Khan and Timur. Most of the book is devoted to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There aren't a lot of bright spots in modern Afghan history. The people share no linguistic, religious, or ethnic traditions and have come together only to fight common enemies. Two wars with the British and the mujahadeen resistance against the Soviets devastated both the people and the economy, but the anarchy following the wars was equally crippling. Often lacking a centralized government, the few rulers Afghanistan has known, from Daoud to Mullah Omar, have been charismatic personalities but hugely ineffective leaders. With a comprehensive understanding of Afghan history, Ewans portrays the rise of the Taliban in the context of a nation that had known no peace in 40 years and little peace in all its history. An epilogue, which contains the most compelling writing of the book, explores the aftermath of September 11 on Afghan history. Though the dry, scholarly political history will turn off casual readers, this is a fascinating story and the best book-length examination of Afghanistan's history we're likely to have for some time. John Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Info
Reaching back to earliest times, Martin Ewans examines the historical evolution of one of today's most dangerous breeding grounds of global terrorism.

Customer Reviews

A pithy review
I liked this book, had no problem reading it, and recommend it. Presumably when reviewers refer to it as "dry", they mean in comparison to such popular histories as Peter Hopkirk's fascinating "The Great Game". But, Hopkirk's point of view lends to the events an air of "the plucky British soldiers" fighting against "incredible odds" in their 19th century incursions into Afghanistan. What happened is that the disciplined British military with the aid of superior tactics and weaponry massacred numerous Afghanis in their quest to keep their Indian empire secure (from a Russian invasion that might never have occurred anyway), and, in due course, suffered some massacres of their own. I don't suggest Hopkirk whitewashed these events. Rather, he knows a story is more appealing with "heros" and "villains", and constructing these is how the very readable "The Great Game" makes a century of fairly detailed Central Asian history palatable.

Ewans's book lacks heros and villains. It's briefer and is consciously even-handed, written with a diplomat's grasp of how the personalities of leaders and the policies of powerful countries towards poor ones steer events. If you want a pithy review of Afghanistan's interactions with the world's great powers, its politics, and the succession of leaders from Dost Mohammed forward, this is your book. It certainly served me well.

Weaknesses of this book include, first, the sketchiness of the pre-19th century history and, second, a sharp focus on leaders and politics giving little idea of how ordinary Afghans lived, especially in rural areas (that is, until the closing chapters dealing with the Communist government, Soviet invasion, and regimes of the Mujahidin and Taliban). I'd like to know more about life in and leaders of the powerful rural tribes, who for 150 years have erected road blocks to the policies of kings, prime ministers, and presidents.

One source for conditions in the country-side are the travelogues of 20th century adventurers: Robert Byron "The road to Oxiana" (1930s - 6 stars out of a possible 5, though about 2/3s of that book concerns Iran), Eric Newby "A short walk in the Hindu Kush" (1950s - humor in the mountains), and Peter Levi "The light garden of the angel king" (1970s - next on my stack to read, but seems highly regarded by all).

A must read on this subject
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, and has been replaced by rabid Islamic fanatics who "can't be seen" till they explode!) The Booklist editorial review of Martin Ewans' book on this page is rightly pessimistic when it says that only "modern" (19th and 20th c.) Afghan history matters to the world, since: "There aren't a lot of bright spots in modern Afghan history. The people share no linguistic, religious, or ethnic traditions and have come together only to fight common enemies. Two wars with the British and the mujahadeen resistance against the Soviets devastated both the people and the economy, but the anarchy following the wars was equally crippling. Often lacking a centralized government, the few rulers Afghanistan has known, from Daoud to Mullah Omar, have been charismatic personalities but hugely ineffective leaders... Afghanistan has known no peace in 40 years and little peace in all its history..." That speaks for itself. The mess is even more exacerbated by the devastating Islamic fire the West and its lackeys kindled in the world because of this; and shame be upon those traitorous "modern" Afghans who fled to the West to live a "better life" so easily.

Complete History of Afghanistan
Martin Ewans, who previously served as a British diplomat in Afghanistan, is clearly someone who is very knowledegable of Afghan history and its people. However, the title "A Short History" may be a bit misleading, as this is, in fact, a thorough examination of Afghan history with some rather dense writing. Certainly it is more for those seriously interested in the subject matter rather than the casual reader.

Another thing to consider is that this book covers Afghanistan from its earliest days to the modern era. Personally, I was most interested in Afghanistan's ancient history as well as the contemporary period, especially the Taliban and the current U.S. military presence. Instead its ancient history is only briefly discussed, with the bulk of the book being devoted to the 1800's and 1900's. The book does offer substantial and insightful coverage of the Soviet occupation, the mujahidin and the Taliban. But, since the book was written in 2002, it's not completely up to date on what is currently happening in Afghanistan. So someone primarily interested in post-Taliban Afghanistan might do better with one of the many books devoted solely to the contemporary era.

Still Ewans is a extremely intelligent man and has tremendous amounts of information and insight to convey regarding Afgan history. This one is worth reading for those with a serious interest in the country