An extended new Preface and a new Epilogue written after the fall of the Taliban in 2001, place The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan, originally published in 1979, in the context of a vastly changed world. The original book describes the cultural and ecological adaptation of the nomadic Kirghiz and their agriculturalist neighbors, the Wakhi, to high altitudes and a frigid climate in the Wakhan Corridor, a panhandle of Afghanistan that borders Pakistan, the former Soviet Union, and the People's Republic of China.

The new Preface challenges the assumption that the root cause of terrorism is religious. Shahrani asserts that the problem of terrorism is fundamentally political and is historically linked to the inappropriate model of the centralized nation-state introduced to Afghanistan by colonial regimes.

The differing responses of the Kirghiz and Wakhi to the Marxist coup are discussed in the new Epilogue. Shahrani has closely followed the flight of the Kirghiz to Pakistan in 1978 and their eventual resettlement among resentful Kurdish villagers in eastern Turkey in 1982. The ethnographic documentation and analysis of the transformation of Kirghiz society, politics, economics, and demography since their exodus from the Pamirs offers valuable lessons to our understanding of the dynamics and true resilience of small pastoral nomadic communities.

This new edition of a highly praised ethnography of nomadic peoples in Afghanistan includes a discussion of the colonial roots of terrorism written since the fall of the Taliban in 2001.

About the Author

M. Nazif Shahrani , an Afghan anthropologist, is chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University.

Reviews

"A carefully developed ethnography that will surely be appreciated as one of the finest on peoples in Central Asia.

* MESA Bulletin *

"Shahrani's work is doubly significant: it is an account of a people that are now virtually inaccessible to anthropological inquiry; and it is a work by a local or native anthropologist.

* Journal of Asian Studies *

"This is a distinctive work, a valuable addition to studies of high-altitude adaptations that is still cited..The republication of the monograph, along with the new material, will enable another generation to appreciate this important work."

* Journal of Asian Studies *



Book Information
ISBN 9780295982625
Author M. Nazif Shahrani
Format Paperback
Page Count 304
Imprint University of Washington Press
Publisher University of Washington Press
Weight(grams) 476g