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Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics Book 36) by Thomas J. Barfield is a nonfiction available to read on EtoBox.

What is Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics Book 36) about?

A major history of Afghanistan and its changing political culture Afghanistan traces the historic struggles and the changing nature of political authority in this volatile region of the world, from the Mughal Empire in the sixteenth century to the Taliban resurgence today. Thomas Barfield introduces readers to the bewildering diversity of tribal and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, explaining what unites them as Afghans despite the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them. He shows how governing these peoples was relatively easy when power was concentrated in a small dynastic elite, but how this delicate political order broke down in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when Afghanistan's rulers mobilized rural militias to expel first the British and later the Soviets. Armed insurgency proved remarkably successful against the foreign occupiers, but it also undermined the Afghan government's authority and rendered the country ever more difficult to govern as time passed. Barfield vividly describes how Afghanistan's armed factions plunged the country into a civil war, giving rise to clerical rule by the Taliban and Afghanistan's isolation from the world. He exami

Who reads Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics Book 36)?

Author

Thomas J. Barfield

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Published

2010

Language

EN

ISBN

9781282544857

Category

nonfiction

Subjects

History, Political Science, Anthropology

Rating

3.98 / 5 (411 ratings)

Updated

2026-03-14