Afghan Historiography: Classical Study, Conventional Narrative, National Polemic

Histories of Afghanistan typically detail political narratives of the rise of dynasties, the reach of empires, and the struggles of an insecure nation‐state. English language histories developed out of early nineteenth‐century British colonial contacts, later Great Game and Cold War competition, and recent decades of Islamic politics. Yet beyond such representations, other histories have situated peoples and territories designated as “Afghan” within wider, centuries‐old interregional flows of trade, culture, migration, and ideology. Ethnographers and activists have contributed to historical understanding with powerful and often polemical studies evaluating national characteristics, social identities, and gendered lives. Over time, as evolving populations and regions have been regarded as Afghan, just so have evolving understandings, interests, and scholarship produced an ever more complex Afghan historiography.