What to read before visiting Afghanistan?
1. No Good Men Amongst The Living by Anand Gopal
I remember meeting Anand Gopal in 2013 whilst he was living in Kabul. He was a familiar face on the expat weekend brunching and party scene. Gopal would regularly vanish off into the interior of the country, and despite his claims of being a journalist he never seemed to publish any work. We joked that he was probably a spy.
But Gopal was quietly writing one of the most in depth and digestible explorations of the war in Afghanistan from the perspective of the country’s citizens. The book follows the lives of a housewife, a Taliban commander, and an American-allied warlord to tell the stunning story of how the US-led strategy accidentally returned the Taliban to power.
The resulting text reads more like a thriller than a piece of academic or strategic criticism. Critics said that Gopal’s book humanised the Taliban – but it is essential reading to understand how Afghanistan’s current rulers have evolved and think.
One of the most interesting parts of our travels through Helmand and Kandahar have been our interaction with young members of the Taliban. They’ve never met with foreigners before, and most are as fascinated as of outsiders. We’re hoping these interactions between us and Afghans help us fractionally to “move the dial” in Afghanistan – you can read more about our impact here.
2. The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War by Craig Whitlock
The vast sea of bleached concrete that was once Camp Leatherneck (if you were American) or Camp Bastion (if you were a Brit) in Helmand province is a small monument to the 2 trillion dollar failure of the war in Afghanistan by the United States and her allies. Once a thriving concrete city in the middle of the Helmand desert, it once served as the hub for what was then “RC-South” the centre for foreign troops engaged in Helmand, Zabul and Kandahar. This is one of the sites we are hoping to share with our travellers.
If there is one book you should read before visiting Camp Leatherneck it is “The Afghanistan Papers” by Craig Whitlock. The tome is a shocking litany of revelations from people who played a direct role in the war, from leaders in the White House and the Pentagon to soldiers and aid workers on the front lines.
In unvarnished language, they admit that the US government’s strategies were a mess, that the nation-building project was a colossal failure, and that drugs and corruption gained a stranglehold over their allies in the Afghan government. All told, the account is based on interviews with more than 1,000 people who knew that the US government was presenting a distorted, and sometimes entirely fabricated, version of the facts on the ground.
3. Return of a King by William Dalrymple
To really understand Afghanistan, it is important to understand its past. It’s why I describe our “Past and Present” itinerary as a look at modern Afghanistan through a historic lens.
Dalrymple’s book is a an account of the First Anglo–Afghan War. The conflict resulted in the near complete destruction of an entire British army, with 4,500 British and Indian soldiers, plus 12,000 of their camp followers dying during a disastrous retreat. It was the first major conflict of the Great Game, a 19th century competition for power and influence between the UK and Russia.
The book serves as an account of the birth of modern Afghanistan but also highlights unmissable parallels with more recent events. It’s why our travellers will start their journeys hiking across Kabul’s Sher Derwaza mountain on the famous “wall walk”. The wall connects two monuments to defeated empires. Starting at the Mughal Emperor Babur’s garden, our route ends at the Bala Hissar Fort, scene of the pivotal events of both Anglo-Afghan wars.