The making of modern Afghanistan / B.D. Hopkins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hopkins, B. D., 1978-

Series:

Cambridge imperial and post-colonial studies series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

East India Company.

History.

Afghanistan--History--19th century.

Afghanistan.

East India Company--History.

Physical Description:

xix, 258 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Basingstoke [England] ; New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.

Summary:

This book examines the evolution of the modern Afghan state in the shadow of Britain's imperial presence in South Asia during the first half of the nineteenth century. It challenges the staid assumptions that the Afghans were little more than pawns in a larger Anglo-Russian imperial rivalry known as the 'Great Game'. Instead, it argues that the way the East India Company related to the Afghan kingdom was definitional of both, and explains many of the unresolved issues central to the region today. The book considers the underlying causes of the failure of British policies and imagination with regard to Afghanistan and its consequences for the region and its inhabitants. In particular, it looks at the pressures shaping British strategic policies and vision beyond its northwest frontier. Rather than being fearful of the far-removed forces of the Tsar, they were more concerned with indigenous competitors for power on the sub-continent.

Contents:

I Afghanistan imagined 1

II Situating Afghanistan 2

III The argument 6

1 The Power of Colonial Knowledge 11

II British imaginings 13

III Elphinstone's legacy 23

2 The Myth of the 'Great Game' 34

II The 'Great Game' 35

III The Indus Scheme 47

IV British policy west of the Indus 50

3 Anglo-Sikh Relations and South Asian Warfare 61

II The failure of British strategy 62

III The Punjab and the 'military labour market' 70

IV The Afghan-Sikh conflict 75

4 Ontology of the Afghan Political Community 82

II The contours of Afghanistan's social ecology 84

III A tribal kingdom: The evolution of the Afghan proto-state 87

IV Afghanistan's plundering polity model 90

V Afghanistan's Islamic moral landscape 98

VI 'Royalism' in an egalitarian society 102

5 Camels, Caravans and Corridor Cities: The Afghan Economy 110

II The Afghan transit economy 113

III Exogenous factors affecting the Afghan economy 123

6 The Afghan Trade Corridor 136

II Typology of caravan corridor cities 137

III Corridor cities of Central Asian caravan commerce 139

Conclusion: The 'Failure' of the Afghan Political Project 163

I The creation of 'Afghanistan' 163

II The argument revisited 165

III Implications 167

IV The colonial legacy 170

Glossary of Foreign Terms 228

Unpublished Sources 230.

Notes:

Based on the author's doctoral dissertation, University of Cambridge.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 230-248) and index.

ISBN:

9780230554214

0230554210

OCLC:

181601051