The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "Josiah Harlan's hunt for a crown began with a letter..." (more)
Key Phrases: exiled king, Dost Mohammed, Ranjit Singh, Shah Shujah (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While many know Sean Connery as "The Man Who Would Be King," few know 19th-century maverick Josiah Harlan, whose adventures probably inspired John Huston's version of Kipling's tale. But the research of British journalist Macintyre (The Englishman's Daughter) gives readers both Harlan's story and a thought-provoking perspective on the history of superpower intervention in Afghanistan. Born to a Pennsylvania Quaker family in 1799, the self-educated Harlan studied Greek and Roman history before becoming a Freemason and shipping out to Calcutta at age 21. Jilted by his fiancée, Harlan decided to seek his fortune on the Asian subcontinent. Calling himself a doctor, he briefly served as a military surgeon with the British army in the Burma War, before tales of Afghanistan fired his imagination. Disguised as a Muslim holy man, Harlan wheeled and dealed his way to Kabul, buying up mercenaries and bribing tribal leaders like a seasoned Afghan warlord. In 1838, Harlan was crowned king of the fierce Hazara people, although the British overthrow of the sitting Afghan ruler soon forced his departure. While mapping Harlan's adventures, Macintyre entertains readers with odd episodes (e.g., Harlan visiting an Afghan sauna fueled by burning night soil) and myriad ironies (e.g., Freemason Harlan trading secrets with an old Rosicrucian sorcerer in an Afghan cave). Harlan's story alone is fascinating, but its resonance with modern-day struggles—Harlan urging the British to try "fiscal diplomacy" (i.e., gold) instead of "invading and subjugating an unoffending people"—makes it compelling. Maps not seen by PW.
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From The New Yorker

A broken heart can lead men astray, but few have wandered as far off course as Josiah Harlan, a Pennsylvania Quaker. In 1822, after sailing to Calcutta on a merchant ship, he learned that his fiancée in America had married another man. He set out on a journey that ultimately brought him to Afghanistan, with the mad hope of carving out a kingdom for himself. Amazingly, he halfway succeeded. Trading on little more than a flair for diplomatic pomp, Harlan became a confidant of Afghan princes and a player in the Great Game between Russia and Britain. Macintyre recounts Harlan's travels with dispatch, and draws on unpublished journals to let his subject's voice seep through. Harlan was relentless in cataloguing his obsessions, which included camels, alchemy, and fresh fruit; the first American to visit Kabul, he wrote memorably about the sherbet sold in the bazaar there, made with snow carried by donkey from the Hindu Kush.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 1st edition (April 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374201781
• ISBN-13: 978-0374201784
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #279,504 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Marvelous Chronicle, April 22, 2006

By	Vijay Dandapani "[e-mail]" (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

A fascinating read in every respect. Macintyre is a fluid writer and the book is a real page turner. Apart from vivid details of the remarkable adventures of the first American in Afghanistan; the intrigues, machinations and sheer depravity of virtually all the players in the great game are in plain sight. The book also provides rare insights - via Josiah Harlan's prism - of British mendacity, misrule and astounding arrogance. Harlan's account of British shenanigans may have a tinge of exaggeration owing to his eventual deep hatred of the Empire and many of its emissaries but the substance of Harlan's writings can be corroborrated in other accounts such as the Great Hedge of India by Roy Moxham (another British author) and in more substantive form with relevant data in Angus Maddison's The World Economy. Macintyre deserves considerable praise for presenting the unvarnished truth, albeit through Harlan's pen, about the largely negative legacy of the British Empire. It is a shame that Harlan's story, despite this wonderful book, remains largely unknown both in the US and the East.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Page After Page ... an Adventure, April 16, 2004

By	Virgil Brown (White Oak, Texas USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Ben Macintyre's biography of Josiah Harlan is an adventure page after page. Most folks who read this review will probably know the story about Harlan being the real life character behind the story by Rudyard Kipling and the movie with Sean Connery and Michael Caine.

Recently I received an email of trivia facts. One of them was that it was still legal to hunt camels in Arizona. This was supposed to be true albeit the last camel hunted in Arizona was hunted in the 1930s. In the late 1840s and 1850s Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis, decided that camels might be cheaply imported in order to replace the role of horses in the Southwest desert.

Davis had taken the idea from Josiah Harlan. And it might been that the US Cavalry became the US Army Camel Corps had not Harlan misunderstood the resistance of American horses, mules, and cows to the aggressive camels. The Camel Corps was disbanded in 1863. Camels were set free in Arizona. "Harlan did not care because he had another brilliant idea." This is yet another adventure of the "man who would be king."

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An American chapter in the Great Game, April 20, 2006

By	Diplo-cat (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan (Paperback)

Most people who pick up this book will already have read some of the travelogues of the "mad dogs and Englishmen" who wandered through Central Asia in the 19th and early 20th century: Burnaby and Nazaroff's memoirs, as well as any of Peter Hopkirk's books on the era.

But here we have a real fish out of water story, and a fascinating one at that: an American Quaker leading, or joining, armies through Afghanistan and elsewhere in the name of, variously: the sitting ruler of Afghanistan, the deposed predecessor, his Sikh neighbor, the British Empire, and arguably himself as "Prince of Ghor."

The tale is fascinating because it's so poorly-known, despite the fact that Kipling's fiction, which I understand to be inspired by Harlan and other adventurers of the time, is so well-known.

Undoubtedly, Harlan's own financial misfortune and quiet death contributed to the obscurity of the narrative, but Macintyre does a great job of weaving the scraps together, and keeping the story's pace. An interesting read, and a bit of history which has earned its place in Central Asian lore.