Ebook {Epub PDF} Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History by Thomas Barfield

 · Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan: a cultural and political history. Princeton: Princeton University Press, , pp. ISBN Jon W. Anderson 1 Contemporary Islam volume 6, pages 95–97 ()Cite this article. cultural, political, and historical realities of the country contradict Barfield’s conclusion. [6] Chapter 2 narrates political events that preceded the Anglo-Afghan War of Chapter 3 summarizes political dynamics in Afghanistan during and in the aftermath of this war to.  · Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History. Afghanistan.: 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 4/5(3).

Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History is an invaluable book. Mr. Barfield does not give the United States a way out of Afghanistan, but he does provide the context necessary for good. Review -Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History "Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History" by Thomas Barfield is a learned, detailed, well written book by an anthropologist, not a historian. Thus we are privileged to see the landscape, the people, and rulers, the events through different eyes. 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.

Written by an expert, with the stylistic flair to be savored by the nonexpert, Afghanistan also has judgments worthy of scholarly reflection. Barfield has captured political, social, and cultural insights of extraordinary importance to the policy arguments of today and tomorrow. 9 Like most Western scholars of Afghanistan Thomas Barfield’s is trapped in the ideology of Afghanophilia in which, depending on the level of cultural competence of the author, every form of identity in Afghanistan is either conflated with or differentiated from ‘Afghan’ and Pashtunophobia, a syndrome in which Pashtuns (especially Ghalzis for Barfield) are the chronic disrupters and opponents of the state and other outsiders. Throughout the book ‘Afghan’ and ‘Pashtun’ are. Thomas Barfield introduces readers to the bewildering diversity of tribal and ethnic. 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.