The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan

The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan PDF Author: Thomas J. Barfield
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 9780292768383
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 focused international attention on this country for the first time in nearly a century. The need for reliable information has only become been greater. Because of their traditional xenophobia toward the West, successive Afghan governments have restricted the number of scholars permitted to undertake extensive fieldwork. For this reason Thomas Barfield's study of the Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan is a welcome addition to the literature, a literature which is not likely to grow in the coming years as war, domestic unrest and restrictive travel policies continue to make the research environment in Afghanistan unfavorable. The Central Asian Arabs are a little-known people of northeastern Afghanistan. This book is an account of the changes that have taken place in their way of life over the twentieth century as they switched from a form of subsistence pastoralism to a cash economy. Barfield's research constitutes a substantial revision of the standard hypothesis on the economic and social status of nomadic pastoralists, as originally posited by Fredrik Barth. One of Barfield's main purposes is to provide a case study that illustrates the wide-ranging complexity of pastoral nomadism, its integration into a regional economy, and how structural changes have occurred within the pastoral economy itself.

The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan

The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan PDF Author: Thomas J. Barfield
Publisher: University of Texas Press
ISBN: 9780292768383
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 focused international attention on this country for the first time in nearly a century. The need for reliable information has only become been greater. Because of their traditional xenophobia toward the West, successive Afghan governments have restricted the number of scholars permitted to undertake extensive fieldwork. For this reason Thomas Barfield's study of the Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan is a welcome addition to the literature, a literature which is not likely to grow in the coming years as war, domestic unrest and restrictive travel policies continue to make the research environment in Afghanistan unfavorable. The Central Asian Arabs are a little-known people of northeastern Afghanistan. This book is an account of the changes that have taken place in their way of life over the twentieth century as they switched from a form of subsistence pastoralism to a cash economy. Barfield's research constitutes a substantial revision of the standard hypothesis on the economic and social status of nomadic pastoralists, as originally posited by Fredrik Barth. One of Barfield's main purposes is to provide a case study that illustrates the wide-ranging complexity of pastoral nomadism, its integration into a regional economy, and how structural changes have occurred within the pastoral economy itself.

The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan

The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan PDF Author: Thomas J. Barfield
Publisher: Thomas Barfield
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 focused international attention on this country for the first time in nearly a century. The need for reliable information has only become been greater. Because of their traditional xenophobia toward the West, successive Afghan governments have restricted the number of scholars permitted to undertake extensive fieldwork. For this reason Thomas Barfield's study of the Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan is a welcome addition to the literature, a literature which is not likely to grow in the coming years as war, domestic unrest and restrictive travel policies continue to make the research environment in Afghanistan unfavorable. The Central Asian Arabs are a little-known people of northeastern Afghanistan. This book is an account of the changes that have taken place in their way of life over the twentieth century as they switched from a form of subsistence pastoralism to a cash economy. Barfield's research constitutes a substantial revision of the standard hypothesis on the economic and social status of nomadic pastoralists, as originally posited by Fredrik Barth. One of Barfield's main purposes is to provide a case study that illustrates the wide-ranging complexity of pastoral nomadism, its integration into a regional economy, and how structural changes have occurred within the pastoral economy itself.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan PDF Author: Thomas Barfield
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691154414
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Traces the political history of Afghanistan from the sixteenth century to the present, looking at what has united the people as well as the regional, cultural, and political differences that divide them.

Lost Enlightenment

Lost Enlightenment PDF Author: S. Frederick Starr
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691165858
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 694

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Book Description
The forgotten story of Central Asia's enlightenment—its rise, fall, and enduring legacy In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds—remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia—drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China. Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 and 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, the size and sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, and, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. Central Asians achieved signal breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, geology, medicine, chemistry, music, social science, philosophy, and theology, among other subjects. They gave algebra its name, calculated the earth's diameter with unprecedented precision, wrote the books that later defined European medicine, and penned some of the world's greatest poetry. One scholar, working in Afghanistan, even predicted the existence of North and South America—five centuries before Columbus. Rarely in history has a more impressive group of polymaths appeared at one place and time. No wonder that their writings influenced European culture from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas down to the scientific revolution, and had a similarly deep impact in India and much of Asia. Lost Enlightenment chronicles this forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, and explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise. Informed by the latest scholarship yet written in a lively and accessible style, this is a book that will surprise general readers and specialists alike.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan PDF Author: Albert Szabo
Publisher: Thomas Barfield
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Based on a survey conducted in 1974-1976 prior to the Soviet invasion, this atlas examines the morphology of Afghan indigenous domestic architecture, exploring the hierarchy of physical and cultural influences responsible for its form and aggregation. The volume consists of two major parts. The first is a general atlas of Afghan nomadic and sedentary domestic structures, focusing particularly on dwellings. The second part is a comparative architectural study of four different types of villages in the Kabul River basin. With 18 color, 51 bandw photos, 100 line drawings, and 41 maps. 10x11 Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan

The Central Asian Arabs of Afghanistan PDF Author: Thomas J. Barfield
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780783788173
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description


Ancient Perspectives

Ancient Perspectives PDF Author: Richard J. A. Talbert
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226789373
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Ancient Perspectives encompasses a vast arc of space and time—Western Asia to North Africa and Europe from the third millennium BCE to the fifth century CE—to explore mapmaking and worldviews in the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In each society, maps served as critical economic, political, and personal tools, but there was little consistency in how and why they were made. Much like today, maps in antiquity meant very different things to different people. Ancient Perspectives presents an ambitious, fresh overview of cartography and its uses. The seven chapters range from broad-based analyses of mapping in Mesopotamia and Egypt to a close focus on Ptolemy’s ideas for drawing a world map based on the theories of his Greek predecessors at Alexandria. The remarkable accuracy of Mesopotamian city-plans is revealed, as is the creation of maps by Romans to support the proud claim that their emperor’s rule was global in its reach. By probing the instruments and techniques of both Greek and Roman surveyors, one chapter seeks to uncover how their extraordinary planning of roads, aqueducts, and tunnels was achieved. Even though none of these civilizations devised the means to measure time or distance with precision, they still conceptualized their surroundings, natural and man-made, near and far, and felt the urge to record them by inventive means that this absorbing volume reinterprets and compares.

The War for Afghanistan: A Very Brief History

The War for Afghanistan: A Very Brief History PDF Author: Thomas J. Barfield
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400843146
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 62

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Book Description
When it invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the United States sought to do something previous foreign powers had never attempted: to create an Afghani state where none existed. More than a decade on, the new regime in Kabul remains plagued by illegitimacy and ineffectiveness. What happened? As Thomas Barfield shows, the history of previous efforts to build governments in Afghanistan does much to explain the difficulties besetting this newest experiment. Princeton Shorts are brief selections taken from influential Princeton University Press books and produced exclusively in ebook format. Providing unmatched insight into important contemporary issues or timeless passages from classic works of the past, Princeton Shorts enable you to be an instant expert in a world where information is everywhere but quality is at a premium.

The Silk Road: Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran

The Silk Road: Central Asia, Afghanistan and Iran PDF Author: Jonathan Tucker
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
ISBN: 9781780769257
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Stretching from the ancient Chinese capital of Xian across the expanses of Central Asia to Rome, the Silk Road was, for 1,500 years, a vibrant network of arteries that carried the lifeblood of nations across the world. Along a multitude of routes everything was exchanged: exotic goods, art, knowledge, religion, philosophy, disease and war. From the East came silk, precious stones, tea, jade, paper, porcelain, spices and cotton; from the West, horses, weapons, wool and linen, aromatics, entertainers and exotic animals. From its earliest beginnings in the days of Alexander the Great and the Han dynasty, the Silk Road expanded and evolved, reaching its peak during the Tang dynasty and the Byzantine Empire and gradually withering away with the decline of the Mongol Empire.In this beautifully illustrated book, which covers the Central Asian section of the Silk Road - from Lake Issyk-kul through Tashkent, Samarkand, Bukhara, the Kyzyl Kum Desert, Khiva and Merv to Herat, Kabul and Iran - Jonathan Tucker uses travellers' anecdotes and a wealth of literary and historical sources to celebrate the cultural heritage of the countries that lie along the Silk Road and illuminate the lives of those who once travelled through the very heart of the world.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan PDF Author: Ralph H Magnus
Publisher: Westview Press
ISBN: 9780813337982
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Either completely ignored in world affairs or lying at the center of confrontation, Afghanistan has ricocheted between these two extremes for over two centuries. First, it was the focal point of colonial rivalry between Russia and Britain in the nineteenth century. More recently, it became the last battlefield that pitted Soviet and Western influence in the Cold War. The ignominy of the Red Army's Afghan adventure, ending in its withdrawal in 1989, hastened the failure of a century of Soviet political experimentation and allowed the rise of a new Asia and evolution toward a new global configuration. Nevertheless, Afghanistan itself remains a region of seemingly insoluble turmoil and constant crisis.Despite the current disinterest by major world powers, Afghanistan's impact on stability, progress, and regional cooperation remains crucial to Central Asian, Middle Eastern, and South Asian well-being. Not only does the geographic position of the country give it important status, but the conflict that continues to destabilize the region can be located in the confrontation among three forces: Mullah, the traditional element of an archetypal, publicly pious Muslim society; Marx, the old and new communists and associated secular socioeconomic forces; and Mujahid, the fighters for a Muslim Afghanistan, mobilized as much by ardent nationalism as by their religious zeal. These three elements, which rarely are able to cooperate, have held power in Afghanistan in turns since the Soviet invasion in 1979. Their rivalry has not abated with the Soviet withdrawal but has instead resulted in a civil war that has crippled economic cooperation throughout the area. Moreover, in various guises, these three sociopolitical forces influence the entire region from Iran to the new states of Central Asia.In this broad introductory volume, Ralph Magnus and Eden Naby, whose intimacy with Afghanistan spans three decades each, detail the country's physical situation, human environment, and modern history, as well as the rise and fall of competing internal forces, most recently the Taliban. The authors offer analytical insight into Afghanistan's political position within the restructured Central Asian region, the ethnic relationships that complicate its political history, and the potential for stability.