A History of Afghanistan

A full national history of Afghanistan from the Palaeolithic to the present, some 130,000 words, with 141 numbered references citing French, British, American, German and Afghan scholarship alongside the Russian.

The foreword prints the division of labour, and it is the most useful single fact about the volume. V. M. Masson wrote on ancient Afghanistan; M. R. Arunova on the middle ages; Yu. V. Gankovsky, who headed the group, on the Durrani state; V. A. Romodin on the modern period; V. G. Korgun on contemporary times; and G. A. Muradov with G. A. Polyakov on the events after 1978.

That roster carries real weight. Gankovsky was a serious orientalist; Masson was among the leading archaeologists of Soviet Central Asia; and Masson and Romodin had jointly written the two-volume Russian history of Afghanistan of 1964 which this book cites as a source. For the deep past, the Durrani empire, the Anglo-Afghan wars and the long nineteenth century, this is genuine scholarship and remains among the most substantial treatments in English.

The dating splits the book in two. The Russian original is of 1982 and the political narrative reaches its natural end at a party conference in March 1982, described in the present tense of a thing just accomplished. But the last pages were revised before the English went to press, reaching membership figures for 1983, an agreement of March 1984, and a Kremlin meeting of 14 March 1985.

So the argument runs from 1982 for almost everything, and from 1985 for two pages.

New critical introduction by Dmitry Chasovennikov.