The Past Present

A Year in Afghanistan

by Edward Hunter

Hodder and Stoughton, 1959, [First Edition], hardcover, dustjacket

Very Good Condition, a little edge and shelf wear, a little rubbing and bumping to edges and corners, previous owners’ details stamped on front endpaper, dustjacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing, bumping and chipping to edges and corners (see photographs)

“When Edward Hunter went on a year’s visit to Afghanistan, the calendar of the country read 1335.  Many of the sights and scenes he has vividly set down might indeed belong to the Middle Ages of the Western world: in particular, Afghan polo, as full of colour and as spectacular to witness as any mediaeval joust.
Belonging to an age-old past, too, were the bakers of Kabul who handed him delectable loaves steaming hot from a well-oven; the Afghan nomads, gaily tattered, whom he saw on his first morning on the move with all their worldly possessions; the Afghan women who still live the life of the purdah, or venture on the streets covered from head to foot in shroud-like veils; the remote, imposing ruins left behind by conquerors who reared temples and cities in land now desert again.
But beyond Afghanistan’s frontiers is the twentieth-century world which cannot much longer be kept at bay.  Already many of the reforms introduced by King Amanullah to his ow undoing are recognized as long overdue.  Afghanistan’s position is central, and over the country where great trade caravans travelled until merchant ships ousted them from importance, aircraft now fly...”