Since September 11, 2001, Afghanistan has dominated the news, as it did for a decade during the Soviet occupation (1979-1989), and long before, when, in the nineteenth and earth twentieth century, its mountain ranges formed the backdrop of the Great Game. In the Western imagination it is one of the most romantic, as well as harsh, beautiful and dangerous places on earth. Squeezed as it is between four empires - Russia, China, India and Persia - its tortured history provides an extraordinary glimpse into the patterns of world movements. Today Afghanistan sits at the pivotal point of a region where a new Great Game is taking shape for the War on Terror and control of the oil-rich steppes of Central Asia. Angelo Rasanayagam's magisterial work - the fruit of personal experience as well as years of scholarship - is the first major history of modern Afghanistan. It traces the country's development from the accession of Abdul Rahman Khan, the 'Iron Amir' in 1880, right up to the demise of the Taliban under US bombing over the winter of 2001, and the search for a new state structure in 2002. Of vital importance for understanding the country's current crisis, it will be essential reading for historians, policy makers, journalists, students, and all those interested in the state of the world today. - Dust jacket.