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The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan

The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan

List Price: $25.00
Your Price: $17.00
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: An American in Afghanistan
Review: A lovelorn Quaker from Pennsylvania would seem an improbable player in the treacherous game of Afghan politics. Yet for more than a decade, beginning in 1826, Josiah Harlan would figure large in the intrigue swirling in and about that remote country. As he has done in several previous biographies, Macintyre has retrieved an all-but-forgotten character from the past, placing his biography in its fascinating historical context
If Harlan's decision to seek his fortune in Asia was prompted in part by his American fiancee's decision to marry another, his obsession with Alexander the Great's record of conquest was the positive impulse. As he traveled the Asian landscape, Harlan was continuously reminded of the Macedonian ruler's impact upon civilization there. Indeed, Macintyre contends that he imagined his role to be that of a latter day Alexander.
At the same time, Harlan remained a product of his American Quaker upbring. As the author puts it: "Harlan had always had two sides to his thinking: the Jeffersonian republican and the would-be monarch, the crusader for Western civilization who yet admired and adopted the native ways." (257) This explains why he was often at odds with the British colonialists of India, who constantly sought to extend their influence and control into Afghanistan by harsh means. At the same time, he himself was a stern taskmaster, eager to impose his own brand of Western practices.
His greatest achievement was, after several periods of service under native rulers, to persuade a northern Afghan chieftain, Mohammed Reffee Beg, to cede the powers of government to him in perpetuity, in return for which Harlan was to guarantee the recruitment and maintenance of the kingdom's military. A remarkable testament to his demonstrated organizational skills, his new status never translated into actual rule. Within a year the British would install their own choice on the throne in Kabul, and Harlan strongly encouraged to quit the country as a possible threat to their plans.
It is remarkable that in the maelstrom of duplicity and regicide that passed for politics in Afghanistan, this young American outside was able to gain the temporary confidence of so many. His manner could be dangerously imperious in situations where obsequiousness was the norm yet Harlan succeeded as did few other foreigners. Macintyre does not offer any direct explanation for that success but it seems clear that Harlan's ability to assimilate and his language fluency were important attributes of his character.
In an epilogue dated Kabul, September 2002, Macintyre visits the capital and describes the ruins of the palace where Harlan had resided for two years. He admits that "kings and would-be kings, foreign and home-produced, had never lasted long." (287) The dismal record of Afghan rule might appear at an end with the defeat of the Taliban. Yet despite that ray of optimism, the body of this biography, describing the capricious rule by local warlords which has long plagued Afghanistan, would seem to suggest otherwise.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: An American in Afghanistan
Review: A lovelorn Quaker from Pennsylvania would seem an improbable player in the treacherous game of Afghan politics. Yet for more than a decade, beginning in 1826, Josiah Harlan would figure large in the intrigue swirling in and about that remote country. As he has done in several previous biographies, Macintyre has retrieved an all-but-forgotten character from the past, placing his biography in its fascinating historical context
If Harlan's decision to seek his fortune in Asia was prompted in part by his American fiancee's decision to marry another, his obsession with Alexander the Great's record of conquest was the positive impulse. As he traveled the Asian landscape, Harlan was continuously reminded of the Macedonian ruler's impact upon civilization there. Indeed, Macintyre contends that he imagined his role to be that of a latter day Alexander.
At the same time, Harlan remained a product of his American Quaker upbring. As the author puts it: "Harlan had always had two sides to his thinking: the Jeffersonian republican and the would-be monarch, the crusader for Western civilization who yet admired and adopted the native ways." (257) This explains why he was often at odds with the British colonialists of India, who constantly sought to extend their influence and control into Afghanistan by harsh means. At the same time, he himself was a stern taskmaster, eager to impose his own brand of Western practices.
His greatest achievement was, after several periods of service under native rulers, to persuade a northern Afghan chieftain, Mohammed Reffee Beg, to cede the powers of government to him in perpetuity, in return for which Harlan was to guarantee the recruitment and maintenance of the kingdom's military. A remarkable testament to his demonstrated organizational skills, his new status never translated into actual rule. Within a year the British would install their own choice on the throne in Kabul, and Harlan strongly encouraged to quit the country as a possible threat to their plans.
It is remarkable that in the maelstrom of duplicity and regicide that passed for politics in Afghanistan, this young American outside was able to gain the temporary confidence of so many. His manner could be dangerously imperious in situations where obsequiousness was the norm yet Harlan succeeded as did few other foreigners. Macintyre does not offer any direct explanation for that success but it seems clear that Harlan's ability to assimilate and his language fluency were important attributes of his character.
In an epilogue dated Kabul, September 2002, Macintyre visits the capital and describes the ruins of the palace where Harlan had resided for two years. He admits that "kings and would-be kings, foreign and home-produced, had never lasted long." (287) The dismal record of Afghan rule might appear at an end with the defeat of the Taliban. Yet despite that ray of optimism, the body of this biography, describing the capricious rule by local warlords which has long plagued Afghanistan, would seem to suggest otherwise.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: topical
Review: anyone watching the nightly news from Afghanistan and wondering why we, the americans, are there and not at home should read this truly wonderful book. Should we, the American people, be the world's "policemen?" mr macintyre answers this question by posing a paradox: if not us then who? If not us in Iraq then who? Again and again mr macintyre drives home this point. the author is man of great learning and wisdom and wears both lightly. on the minus side he writes in a childish and inelegant fashion but these are minor quibbles. it is a superb book and deserves to become a set text in schools in the Free World,. Not as literature becasue it is not but because its message is this: do not give up, effort is rewarded, no religion has the monopoly on truth and no man (or woman) is an island. On a more contemporary and some would say superficial level mr macintyre, famous as an opponent of an enlarged european union, argues against such enlargement. Personally i thought this spoilt the flow of the impeccably told story. Surely our young people need to understand these truths?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: topical
Review: anyone watching the nightly news from Afghanistan and wondering why we, the americans, are there and not at home should read this truly wonderful book. Should we, the American people, be the world's "policemen?" mr macintyre answers this question by posing a paradox: if not us then who? If not us in Iraq then who? Again and again mr macintyre drives home this point. the author is man of great learning and wisdom and wears both lightly. on the minus side he writes in a childish and inelegant fashion but these are minor quibbles. it is a superb book and deserves to become a set text in schools in the Free World,. Not as literature becasue it is not but because its message is this: do not give up, effort is rewarded, no religion has the monopoly on truth and no man (or woman) is an island. On a more contemporary and some would say superficial level mr macintyre, famous as an opponent of an enlarged european union, argues against such enlargement. Personally i thought this spoilt the flow of the impeccably told story. Surely our young people need to understand these truths?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Page After Page ... an Adventure
Review: 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."

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Imperial hubris?
Review: Grizzled and laconic, two British army deserters pause in their amble through the Khyber Pass. With Afghanistan at their feet, they swear off liquor and women until they have conquered its abundant tribes, bandits, and holy men. For many Americans, this scene from John Huston's epic adventure sprang to mind as US Special Forces rode horse-back into battle against al-Qaeda and the Taliban after 9.11.

What wouldn't have sprung so easily to mind, except for a few Central Asia experts and historians of the Great Game, was the realization that our Afghan campaign is not the first time Americans have intervened in local intrigues there. British journalist, Ben Macintyre, reminds his readers that Josiah Harlan Harlan, a Pennsylvania Quaker, was the first American to make his way to Kabul in 1838. Disguised as a Sufi mystic, Harlan styled himself as a 19th Century Alexander the Great. Within a year, he was commanding the armies of Dost Muhammad Khan, the mighty emir of Kabul.

For his successful campaign against northern slave-traders, the grateful emir proclaimed Harlan, Prince of Ghor, Lord of the Hazarahs. His fame, however, was short-lived. The British invaded Afghanistan in 1839 and greatly annoyed with the free-booting American expelled Harlan. Two years later, the emir's guerrilla forces massacred 15,000 British troops forcing the British to quit Afghanistan.

Returning to America, Harlan published a scathing critique British hubris. Although never widely read outside America, Macintyre suspects that Rudyard Kipling was familiar with the general outline of Harlan's Afghan adventures. In 1897, he published the short story that would later inspire John Huston. Unlike his later works, his tale of Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnehan does not celebrate Britain's civilizing mission in Central Asia. Rather, it frankly warns that the White Man's Burden in Afghanistan would prove too heavy for the over-reaching British.

Today, the US bears the burden of nation-building in Afghanistan. As it stumbles along, with the added weight of Iraq, US policy-makers would do well to consider both the illusions of Josiah Harlan and the sober warning of Rudyard Kipling.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A Different Point of View
Review: Having read the book and then having read all the other favorable reader's comments, I'm wondering "Did we all read the same book?" Clearly this is a fascinating true history of a very unusual man who lived in the early 19th century in what we now know to be modern Afghanistan. But the tale in NOT told that well. This author could have served the reader well by writing more and quoting less. Paragraph after paragraph, page after page are just riddled with wholesale blocks of text taken "boilerplate" from the 'First American's' own awkward writings ( mispellings, convoluted sentences and all). No doubt the story of Josiah Harlan is a piece of history that should be told. This book, fails to present it well. And do note many of the other reader comments that favorably mention this work...they seem to infer this book offers great lessons about present day Afghanistan and how things work there. Nothing could be further from the truth. This book does not even pretend to do so. If you are interested in current events in that part of the world, go read Newsweek or Time. Not this book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: great book
Review: i dont buy the line that mr macintyre's book is a parody of american involvement in afghanistan and iraq. i dont see him as being anti american. to me this is a great book about a great guy who was really amazing. mr macintyre isnt the best writer in the world. sometimes i could not believe what he was saying was true. sure enough i checked it all in my reference books and it was. anyone who wants a good read in the summer should buy this book.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: thrilling
Review: i read this book over the weekend and time passed without me noticing so good is it. less well informed readers than myself would not have heard of the 19 th century cad Josiah Harlon, whose adventures inspired John Huston's version of Kipling's tale. mr macintyre is one of england's leading reporters and has dug out facts even i did not know. he is good on the basic facts though i dispute his contention that harlon was born into a Pennsylvania Quaker family in 1799. my own research suggests he was born technically in 1988. i agree he was self-educated into Greek and Roman history before becoming a Freemason and shipping out to Calcutta at age 21. i dispute he was thrown out by his fiancée, Jennifer, as my own research indicates quite the reverse. i concur he sought fortune on the Asian subcontinent. Calling himself a surgeon he briefly served as a chaplain with the British army in the Great War of Burma, before tales of Afghanistan stoked his imagination. Disguised as a Sikh holy man, Harlan wheeled and dealed his way to Kabul, buying up mercenaries and bribing tribal leaders. He had many guises, mimic, actor, doctor,writer, explorer, naturist, musician and soldier. In 1858, Harlan was crowned king of the fierce Hazaran people. While mapping Harlan's adventures, Macintyre made me roar with laughter recounting odd episodes such as the time Harlon pretended to be a gymnast! This is no mere rehashing of a well travbelled story. the author gives even experts such as me a new insight using newly discovered documents and Harlan's own unpublished journals. I fully recommend this book!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Entertaining and Instructive
Review: Macintyre's telling of Josiah Harlan's adventures in Pakistan and Afganistan makes for a wonderful read. Harlan's exotic and quixotic life are facinating and by relying on the subject's own colorful descriptions of his journey's (the only real record available) and by providing only necessary commentary, the reader gets a much better sense of what Harlan was like.

Harlan is not a particularly honorable character - he switched allegiences as suited his personal ambitions - but, he had a real sense of morality as regards the treatment of women, slavery etc. Harlan did not have a "white man's burden" view of the Afgan people; he respected their culture and many of their individual leaders as great intellects and rulers. His great ambition to establish himself as a ruler in Afganistan led to fantastic adventures that have no modern equivalent. A combination of guile, energy, and bravado helped him raise armies, engage with kings and princes, and affect the political landscape of part of the world previously untrammelled by Western Nations.

The history of the British intrusion into the area as well as the long standing local regional, tribal and family factions should not be forgotten by modern leaders looking to affect politics there. Harlan excortiates the British for trying to impose their will on Afganistan instead of building a form of government that includes the many competing factions. The British lost their hold on Kabul in a tragically bloody manner because they did not bother to understand the political and cultural dynamics of the region.

Mcintyre thankfully limits his views on the lessons of history in a reasonable and brief postscript to the biography. The story of Harlan is instructive without senseless commentary, and through restraint, the messages become clear.


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