Return of a king : the battle for Afghanistan /
By: Dalrymple, William
Material type: BookPublisher: London : Bloomsbury, c2013.Description: xl, 567 pages, 32 unnumbered pages of plates : col. ill. , maps ; 24 cm.ISBN: 9781408822876; 9781408822876 (trade paperback edition)Subject(s): Afghanistan -- History -- British Intervention, 1838-1842DDC classification: 958.103Item type | Home library | Call number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
REGULAR | University of Wollongong in Dubai Main Collection | 958.103 DA RE (Browse shelf) | Available | T0049656 |
, Shelving location: Main Collection Close shelf browser
956.95044 GE MA Married to a Bedouin / | 956.953044 AZ ON The one-state condition : occupation and democracy in Israel/Palestine | 957.57053 CL EM Emirates diaries : | 958.103 DA RE Return of a king : the battle for Afghanistan / | 958.104092 FE KA Kandahar cockney : a tale of two worlds / | 958.104092 PA BE A bed of red flowers : in search of my Afghanistan / | 958.1045 KA LO A long goodbye : the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan / |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
In the spring of 1839, the British invaded Afghanistan for the first time. Led by lancers in scarlet cloaks and plumed shakos, nearly 20,000 British and East India Company troops poured through the high mountain passes and re-established on the throne Shah Shuja ul-Mulk. On the way in, the British faced little resistance. But after two years of occupation, the Afghan people rose in answer to the call for jihad and the country exploded into violent rebellion. The First Anglo-Afghan War ended in Britain's greatest military humiliation of the nineteenth century: an entire army of the then most powerful nation in the world ambushed in retreat and utterly routed by poorly equipped tribesmen. Return of a King is the definitive analysis of the First Afghan War, told through the lives of unforgettable characters on all sides and using for the first time contemporary Afghan accounts of the conflict. Prize-winning and bestselling historian William Dalrymple's masterful retelling of Britain's greatest imperial disaster is a powerful and important parable of colonial ambition and cultural collision, folly and hubris, for our times.