Unlike my Checkmark Books thing on German history, this review will indeed be brief.

(Incidentally, like its series sibling, it’s written well, and put together in much the same way.)

Every country has a human past, but it can be surprising how little formal history a country like Afghanistan has. The second half of Checkmark Books on Germany covers the last 200 years—Germany as a modern industrial society. The second half of Checkmark books on Afghanistan covers the last 40 years—Afghanistan in the news for being at war.

Largely unfamiliar wars, too, although the USA fought one of them and another giant empire fought the other one. What does anyone know about Afghanistan? Much of its formal history has been written by visitors who came at the head of invading armies, like the Russians and the Americans, and the British, and even the Mongols and Greeks.

What little reform and central society there is has played a hopeless and largely unsuccessful game of catch-up, which has had little effect on the tribal, rural masses. Of course, on one side, it’s clearly unfortunate than an Afghanistan has to choose between foreign influence that, although sometimes is helpful, does take place in a cynical, corrupt world—or else being totally ignored and forgotten and going without. On the other side, rural tribal set-in-ways societies can be cruel, to queer people, guys who don’t want to be soldiers but perhaps little poets, or any woman. Society ruthlessly hardens them, and then they get dragged into hell by invasion, civil war, instability, corruption, and poverty anyway.

Ironically the US state considers Middle Easterners like Pashtuns and most Afghanis to be Caucasian, kinda like Italians and Serbs, you know, although there are some East Asian ethnic types in Afghanistan as well.

In the United States, sometimes poor people live in subsidized housing in nice towns, which can be nice sometimes, assuming that you aren’t too ambitious/restless, or feel violated by expectations of gratitude or feelings of a certain amount of benign neglect. (Forget about television people and people with good jobs.) But Afghanistan—yes, to come from a whole nationality, a whole country, that’s poor, a whole set of languages and a religion that’s poor, a whole everything that’s poor, no middle class cousins (or retired parents!) or nice town, just the whole thing is othered, yes, that is othered. The upper crust of Black musicians might be considered more American, even if they’re not us-Americans lol (how clever I am, lol).

Longer than I thought. But it’s not like American or British or German history; it doesn’t have that familiar (‘familia’) feel to it. A well read American knows a lot of Euro/American history, but nothing about reformer-King Amanullah, certainly nothing compared to what he knew about us.

…. All that money given to Afghan rebels over more than a decade, and yet the US didn’t cultivate any reliable allies, and in fact gave most of the money to the most anti-American groups, mostly because we couldn’t be bothered to care about the different kinds of Afghanis that were out there. “They’re all damn foreigners, and they’re all blowing up commies. Give the money to the real idiots; I like them.”

…. Lots of crazy: Russian genocide of Afghans (one million dead civilians), Caucasian Afghan exclusion of East Asian Afghans.

Kinda puts things in perspective—little tribes everywhere.

…. The Taliban drug lords underline hypocritical religion’s inability to succeed even on its own terms. (Which is not surprising, since everything is connected, and the Taliban, well.) Little boys playing with kites—forbidden! It is un-Islamic! It is not ascetic!…. But if you want to make money (pennies, at least), off the heroin market, you know where to find me. (They grew the opium.)

…. O the traumatic places you’ll go!

A Brief History of Afghanistan examines this country's isolation and how it found itself involved in 30 years of war and anarchy. This resource provides extensive background information so readers can understand the issues and make informed judgments of their own. Offering a clear, concise account of this country's historical and cultural heritage, from 3000 BCE to the present, this insightful book explores the culture and politics of the Pashtun tribes whose homeland extends across much of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan, as well as the Taliban insurgency and the relationship between local leaders and the central government in Kabul. Coverage includes: The rise of Islam to the establishment of the Afghan state -The birth of modern Afghanistan -The 20th-century monarchy -Two revolutions -Soviet Afghanistan -Afghanistan in rebellion -Mujahideen rule -The Taliban era -Afghanistan under Karzai -The Taliban resurgence.