In his introduction in The Emergence of Modern Afghanistan, Vartan Gregorian, mentions a quote from Mohammed Ali’s book, A New Guide to Afghanistan, as follows: “No country comparable to Afghanistan in size and no people approaching the Afghans in historical interest and importance have received so little consideration at the hands of modern writers as have Afghanistan and the Afghans.” For its importance and its relevance, Gregorian, puts this quote, contextually, in the 19th century of Afghanistan in which he argues that Afghanistan, for the most part, was culturally isolated, and protected as a parochial region in the Muslim world. That is one of the reasons that Afghanistan remained an unknown region to the rest of the world. He then draws a bigger picture by putting Afghanistan in the colonial frame; Gregorian says that causality of this “isolationism” and “parochialism,” relates to the fact that Afghanistan never undergone of a period of direct, and intensive European coloni...
sporadic thoughts and reflections of an anthropology phd student