Bringing together established analysts and a new generation of researchers, this volume takes us beyond the common and surprisingly durable cliche of the 'wild tribes' on the Afghan frontier. The contributors, coming from different disciplinary backgrounds and experiences, shed light on the complexities and paradoxes of Afghan history, identity and socio-political change. Such scholarship, which eschews easy stereotypes and engages ... Read morewith, and builds upon Afghan perspectives is more needed now than ever.
Jonathan Goodhand This collection of contributions by a number of established researchers on Afghanistan sets a reflective tone as it seeks to address a wide range of highly complex subject areas. ... The book has much to commend it, in providing thoughtful analysis on a range of issue which are significant to the future of Afghanistan.
Peter Marsden
Asian Affairs
'Beyond the "Wild Tribes"' is a timely and original work that will reorient the study of Afghanistan in important ways. Specialists in political science, anthropology, religious studies, and economics will benefit from its observations on the state of Afghan studies as well as the suggestions for moving forward.
Sophia Rose Shafi
The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences
The distinctiveness of 'Beyond the "Wild Tribes"' rests on the fact that it covers unexplored terrain. It is an ambitious volume dwelling on topics that normally do not feature in everyday discussion about Afghanistan, and its contributors distance themselves from the over-researched and overstretched debate on the Taliban and the military campaigns against it since 2001. This volume is a serious attempt by a group of dedicated scholar-practitioners to locate the ills and challenges facing Afghanistan today. Since the issues they wrestle with are timeless (in the Afghan context), their combined reflections and findings will have an enduring relevance.
Amalendu Mishra, Lancaster University, author of Afghanistan: The Labyrinth of Violence Show Less