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Humanitarian Invasion is the first book of its kind: a ground-level inside account of what development and humanitarianism meant for Afghanistan, a country touched by international aid like no other. Relying on Soviet, Western, and NGO archives, interviews with Soviet advisers and NGO workers, and Afghan sources, Timothy Nunan forges a vivid account of the impact of development on a country on the front lines of the Cold War. Nunan argues that Afghanistan functioned as a laboratory for the future of the Third World nation-state. If, in the 1960s, Soviets, Americans, and Germans sought to make a territorial national economy for Afghanistan, later, under military occupation, Soviet nation-builders, French and Swedish humanitarians, and Pakistani-supported guerrillas fought a transnational civil war over Afghan statehood. Covering the entire period from the Cold War to Taliban rule, Humanitarian Invasion signals the beginning of a new stage in the writing of international history.
List of contents
Introduction; 1. How to write the history of Afghanistan; 2. Afghanistan's developmental moment?; 3. States of exception, states of humanity; 4. From Pashtunwali to communism?; 5. Under a red veil; 6. Borderscapes of denial; 7. The little platoons of humanity; 8. Conclusion.
About the author
Timothy Nunan is an Academy Scholar at the Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies. Previously, he was an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Zentralasien-Seminar of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Summary
This book is a global history of development and humanitarianism in Afghanistan during the Cold War. Relying on sources from Soviet, Western, and NGO archives, as well as original interviews, it will engage readers interested in Soviet and Russian history, Afghan history, and the history of international development and NGOs.
