Ghosts of Alexander

Seth G. Jones writes an article in The Wall Street Journal, wherein he annoys Josh Foust. There is a lot in the article to choke on, especially his comments on tribes, arbakai and jirgas. But this comment is what got me:

…outside of some anthropologists, few people have bothered to examine Afghanistan’s stable periods.

That’s right. These scholars are missing in action. Perhaps off studying other areas? If only we had more material on “Afghanistan’s stable periods”….

Let’s start with anthropologists: “some”? I’ll stick to those anthropologists who did pre-1979 work. I came up with these, in a rather hasty manner, in no particular order:

1. Louis Dupree
2. Robert L. Canfield
3. M. Nazif Shahrani
4. Alef Shah Zadran
5. Audrey Shalinsky
6. Elizabeth Bacon
7. Pierre Cenlivres
8. Micheline Centlivres-Demont
9. Richard Tapper
10. Nancy Tapper (Lindisfarne)
11. David J. Katz
12. Yusuf Nuristani
13. Erwyn Orywal
14. Thomas Barfield
15. Willi Steul
16. Jon Anderson
17. Inger Boeson
18. A. Christensen
19. Ashraf Ghani
20. Takeshi Matsui
21. Jeffrey Evans-von Krbek
22. Ingeborg Baldauf (also a linguistic)
23. Richard Strand (also a linguist)
24. Khadiya Khashimbekov
25. Erhard Franz
26. Shuyler Jones
27. Jan Ovesen
28. Lincoln Keiser
29. Michelle Poulton
30. Robin Poulton
31. J.P.S. Uberoi
32. K. Wutt
33. H.F. Shurman
34. Aparna Rao
35. R.T. Rashidov
36. Carl-Johan Charpentier
37. Etc….

This is getting tiring. And if I wanted to start poaching those who studied Pakhtuns on the other side of the Durand, some big names would pop up, notably Fredrik Barth, whose importance to the field of anthropology can not be understated, and the very influential Akbar Ahmed. Plus, I could include anthropologists would did their work post 1979. Also, if I took the time to pick out all the numerous local scholars and a full accounting of Soviet field research, the list would stretch on for quite a while. And apologies to anyone I forgot. I don’t feel like spending the next couple of hours on Worldcat.

So, back to the Jones’ quote:

…outside of some anthropologists, few people have bothered to examine Afghanistan’s stable periods.

Alright, the above list was “some anthropologists.” How about those “few people”? I will stick with history and political science for now, and I’ll stay in the contemporary era.  These are the scholars who came to mind when it comes to studies which include assessments of pre-1979 “stable periods” Afghanistan:

1. Hassan Kakar
2. Jonathan L. Lee
3. Ludwig Adamec
4. Robert McChesney
5. R.T. Akhramovich
6. Leon B. Poullada
7. Vartan Gregorian
8. Shah M. Hanifi
9. M. Jamil Hanifi
10. Burhan al-Din Kushkaki
11. Mir Gholam Mohammad Ghobar
12. Christine Noelle-Karimi
13. Amin Saikal
14. Etc… etc… etc…
15. → 137.  Etc… etc…

I’m not going to belabor the point. This list could go on for a long, long time. I could make a list for popular history books that would not make the cut at an academic press. Then I could include a list for economists, IO/NGOs, religious studies, IR, etc… There’s so much to go on. Personally, I recommend these readings as a starting point.

Too bad there is such a paucity of material on Afghanistan’s stable periods!

PS: My apologies to RAND, the Hardy Boys and the Wall Street Journal for the sorry attempt at photoshop.