First Western War In Afghanistan Was An 'Imperial Disaster'
"In early 1800, this guy who has inherited the remains of his grandfather's empire at the age of only 17 — he's kicked out. He takes refuge in British India, where the British tuck him away and give him a pension, realizing that this guy could be useful in the future."
On Britain's invasion of Afghanistan
"With the 'Great Game' [as it came to be called] building up between Britain and Russia, there's competition for Asia between these two European land-based empires. ... And they both realize, if you look at the map, that these two empires are going to converge somewhere in the middle in the Hindu Kush, in this unmapped, unknown territory in the middle of Asia.
"It's an absurd undertaking, because at this point the British and the Russians are still about 1,000 miles apart. Nonetheless, the British do this extraordinary, epic invasion of Afghanistan. They go around the sides of the Punjab, they go up the Indus ... They drag this artillery up mountainsides, and they actually get to Afghanistan. They hardly fight a battle, but they lose a quarter of their force to dehydration and bad planning and starvation, and it's this hellish march.
"But such is the surprise when they turn up in Afghanistan, the rulers of Kandahar flee. They take Kandahar without a shot being fired; Shah Shuja is installed in his old palace in Kabul. It looks as if it's a huge success. You have a whole winter when the British are just going shooting and ice skating and taking the foxhounds out for exercise ... Everyone seems to be happy."
More History
Author Interviews
Enshrined And Oft-Invoked, Simon Bolivar Lives On