Oya Bain

This is a remarkable book that looks at the history of Afghanistan in the 1900s . The heroic and far-sighted efforts of the great statesman Mahmut Tarzi, to modernize his country during the reign of two kings, his connections with Kemal Ataturk, another great leader who succeeded to bring Turkey out of the ashes of fading Ottoman Empire into a modern country are described with great detail and accuracy in this book. The writer had access to many private archives. One sees the horrendous damage done to Afghanistan by imperialist powers in the past centuries and that it even continues today, with more chaos, death, and suffering of untold innocent Afghans are really tragic and sad beyond words. This book should be required reading for historians and politicians alike.