Connecting Histories in Afghanistan

by Hanifi, Shah Mahmoud

• ISBN13: 9780804774116
• ISBN10: 0804774110
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2011-02-11
• Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr

Summary

Most histories of nineteenth-century Afghanistan argue that the country remained immune to the colonialism emanating from British India because, militarily, Afghan defenders were successful in keeping out British imperial invaders. However, despite these military victories, colonial influences still made their way into Afghanistan. Looking closely at commerce in and between Kabul, Peshawar, and Qandahar, this book reveals how local Afghan nomads and Indian bankers responded to state policies on trade. British colonial political emphasis on Kabul had significant commercial consequences both for the city itself and for the cities it displaced to become the capital of the emerging Afghan state. Focused on routing between three key markets, Connecting Histories in Afghanistanchallenges the overtly political tone and Orientalist bias that characterize classic colonialism and much contemporary discussion of Afghanistan.

Author Biography

Shah Mahmoud Hanifi is Associate Professor of History at James Madison University.

Table of Contents

List of Maps and Figures	p. ix
List of Tables	p. x
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Preface: Querying the Kabul Hypothesis	p. xv
Colonial Market Knowledge and Commercial Experimentation
Introduction: The Historical Location and Conceptual Framing of Afghanistan	p. 3
Financing the Kabul Produce	p. 35
Contracting Nomadic Carriage for an Aquatic Agenda	p. 51
Fiscal Instability and State Revenue Reformulation during the First British Occupation	p. 77
The New Outdated Colonial Political Economy
Capital Concentrations and Coordinations: Peshawar Subsidies and Kabul Workshops	p. 97
New State Texts and Old Commercial Flows	p. 121
Mutual Evasion between Afghanistan and the Global Marketplace	p. 153
Conclusion: Deflecting Colonial Canons and Cannons-Alternate Routes to Knowing Afghanistan	p. 165
Appendix: Commercial Vocabulary in Nineteenth-Century Afghanistan	p. 177
Note on Sources: Abbreviations, Transliterations and Spellings	p. 183
Notes	p. 185
Sources and Notes for Maps and Figures	p. 239
Bibliography	p. 243
Index	p. 257
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