Draft:Afghan Modern: The History of a Global Nation

Afghan Modern: The History of a Global Nation is a 2015 non-fiction book by Robert Crews, a historian at Stanford University specializing in Afghanistan and Central Asia. Published by Harvard University Press, the book offers a reinterpretation of Afghanistan's history, challenging traditional narratives that portray the country as isolated and exceptional. Instead, Crews argues for understanding Afghanistan as deeply integrated into global processes and trends, highlighting its historical connections with the rest of the world.

Reception

Writing in The Middle East Journal, Robert Nichols states that Crews challenges traditional narratives of Afghanistan by placing the country's history within a global context. He further emphasizes how Crews argues that previous Western scholarship has often relied on limited sources and stereotypes, perpetuating a view of Afghanistan as isolated and backward. Instead, by utilizing a diverse range of primary materials in multiple languages, Nichols praises Crews for demonstrating Afghanistan's deep engagement with global trends of empire, migration, and intellectual exchange throughout its history. He ends his review by stating that the book's approach reframes Afghanistan's story, highlighting its cosmopolitanism and connections to wider political, economic, and cultural transformations in Asia and the world.

Anatol Lieven, in The New York Review of Books, characterizes the book as “extremely valuable and interesting,” praising its emphasis on Afghanistan’s historical engagement with global currents. Crews is commended for eloquently highlighting how trade, pilgrimage, and migration have long connected Afghanistan to broader regional and international networks. Lieven states that Crews’ work convincingly portrays the progress of modern change in the country, especially in the mid-twentieth century, and strongly evokes the far-reaching scope and activities of the Afghan diaspora. However, the review also notes that while Crews effectively challenges stereotypes of isolation and conservatism, he does not sufficiently address the structural deficiencies and limitations of the Afghan state’s modernization efforts—an omission that leaves certain central aspects of Afghanistan’s long-running struggles unexplained. Specifically, the critique suggests that Crews glosses over the state’s inability to penetrate rural areas with meaningful governance, the pervasive corruption and inefficiency that drain public trust and resources, the uneven development of national institutions that fail to serve diverse ethnic and regional groups equally, and the absence of a truly cohesive national identity that can withstand persistent internal divisions. Without delving into these deeply rooted obstacles to modernization, the analysis overlooks key reasons why Afghanistan’s attempts to establish a stable, modern state have repeatedly faltered.