Afghan Frontier: Feuding and Fighting in Central Asia [Paperback]

Victoria Schofield (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1860648959 | ISBN-13: 978-1860648953 | Publication Date: November 8, 2003 | Edition: General

"Every rock, every hill has its story", Winston Churchill wrote of the North-West Frontier, and here is the full story of these turbulent lands. Against a background of the history and geography of the region, the author paints a vivid picture of this extraordinary place. Drawing on written records, soldier's letters, memsahibs' journals, travelers' tales and first hand experience, Victoria Schofield unravels the history of the North-West Frontier layer by layer.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a very carefully researched and well-written documentary on the North-West Frontier...it is enlivened by frequent quotes from both historical and living witnesses...The present situation in Afghanistan is dealt with very thoroughly and the detailed background is an admirable introduction to the Russian involvement in that country and the guerilla opposition to it." -- M.M. Kaye, author of The Far Pavilions

Book Description

"Every rock, every hill has its story", Winston Churchill wrote of the North-West Frontier, and here is the full story of these turbulent lands. Against a background of the history and geography of the region, the author paints a vivid picture of this extraordinary place. Drawing on written records – soldier’s letters, memsahibs’ journals, travelers’ tales and first hand experience, Victoria Schofield unravels the history of the North-West Frontier layer by layer.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Tauris Parke Paperbacks; General edition (November 8, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1860648959
• ISBN-13: 978-1860648953
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 4.9 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,807,347 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A high quality book in all respects, March 24, 2006

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A Reader - See all my reviews

This review is from: Afghan Frontier: Feuding and Fighting in Central Asia (Paperback)

I think that after Sir Olaf Caroe's book "The Pathans" which is generally regarded as the magnum opus of this confounding subject, this book (though not as well known) is the second best exposition I have come across regarding Afghans (also Pashtuns or Pathans)that I can safely recommend as such.
Victoria Schofield is very much a contemporary english author, but to my scrutiny she does not seem to suffer from the flaws which such people mostly display, especially those from the now dominant American style of writing. Consider: she doesn't touch her subject of study lightly or casually, or lace it with flighty rhetorical assumptions or hyperbole. She is forthright but gracefully so, in her assessment of Afghan realities past and present, unlike the timorous liberal or childishly amateurish and abrupt attitudes we now see prevalent towards it. For instance on P.266 of the book she mentions an international antiques dealer John Suidmak, who "discovered in a curious way that he could not do good business (with his Afghan counterparts)until he had learnt to lie". Now that would evoke howls of protests from "non-ethnocentric" and "politically correct" Western types, as well as "educated" immigrant Afghans residing in the West - who want to conceal as much as they can the realities of their native culture and society from credulous Westerners for a variety of cunning reasons - but it is a reality which I as a Pathan can vouch for 100%. And I wouldn't want to hide it from Westerners, because unlike other Afghans, I am half Anglo-Saxon and my principles and upbringing wouldn't permit such chicanery or hidden agendas as being justified. The whole tone of her book is set like that, a treasure rarely wittnessed nowadays. The truth is the truth whether it is ethnocentric or not. Western liberals and scholars of the present day have beset themselves with a plethora of terms that cast aspersions on ordinary common sense, and Victoria Schofield is not one of those! The book's subtitle "Fighting and Feuding" sums up the main aspect of Afghan reality, which the author wishes to bring to her readers' attention. Lastly, Victoria's work doesn't suffer from the "typos" and misspelt native place and people's names that nowadays so ubiquitously bedevil even the best of publications and distract from their worth. In other words, Miss Schofield is a high quality author. She seems to remind me of those pioneering British ladies of a certain period and disposition, made of stern and sturdy but graceful stuff - who went confidently where their vast empire used to take them. In this regard I am reminded of Lady Sale (also mentioned herein) who chronicled an elaborate account, from her personal travails, of the First Anglo-Afghan war of 1839-43; and of my own British mother Kathleen, who married my Pathan father in 1959 and lived for the rest of her life in Peshawar on this perpetually troubled Afghan Frontier, for for 43 years...
Another advantage of this book is that while Caroe's classic work is dated by as much as 50 years, Schofield writes from a very recent perspective in time (2003), covering this area's history from the very start, down to its dramatically changing present situation as well - using the relevant maps and illustrations where needed. Thus her writing becomes a story and a treastise at the same time. The histories of modern Afghanistan (from 1747) and the British Indian "Frontier" (now the Pakistani NWFP) are elaborately presented intertwined as they should be, in a single narrative that is replete with the detailed anecdotes and impressions of British and other European colonial administrators, soldiers, diplomats, statesmen, writers, physicians, tourists, educationists, businessmen and christian missionaries past and present, who from 1809 to the present encountered the Pathans in both the Frontier as well as over the border in Afghanistan. These not only bring the book to life, but also present a wealth of valuable social, anthropological and historical information in an extremely palatable and stimulating manner. So this book is very much upto date as far as the post 9/11 reference datum of the current world situation is concerned - and is infact a very useful guide for this new scenario.
The paper, binding and typesetting are also of equally high quality, so as to complete the overall picture of an excellent book.