William Dalrymple’s new book, “The Return of a King
I’ve been listening to the current BBC Book of the Week which features William Dalrymple’s new book, “The Return of a King”, as read by Tim Pigott-Smith.
This new history of the First Anglo-Afghan War (1839-42), draws remarkable parallels between that 19th-century conflict and Nato’s current Afghan mess. “In both cases,” he says, “the invaders thought they could walk in, perform regime change, and be out in a couple of years. In both cases they were unable to prevent themselves getting sucked into a much wider conflict.”
This first Afghan war led to disaster for the same reasons as the Russian intervention in the 1990s and Nato’s today, but I’m not sure our politicians have learnt any lesson from previous conflicts.
Anyway this enthralling account in five daily readings can be heard from the BBC Book of the Week site, but you have to be quick as the first episode finishes in a couple of days.
You can get it here:
BBC Radio 4 - Book of the Week, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, Episode 1