An American Engineer in Afghanistan

Marjorie Bell

• Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
• Year: 1948
• eBook ISBN:
  9780816661466
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Biografías de ciencias sociales

An American Engineer in Afghanistan was first published in 1948.The legend of Afghanistan as “The Forbidden Country” grew chiefly from a warning of the British Indian Government which once guarded the Afghan frontier north of the Khyber Pass -- “It is absolutely forbidden to cross this border into Afghanistan.” A glance at the endsheet map in this book will recall its strategic position in the Middle East.When A. C. Jewett entered in 1911 with an escort supplied for his safe transportation to Kabul, he was the first American permitted to live in the country since 1880. He was employed by Habibullah Khan, the Amir of Afghanistan, to take charge of installing a hydroelectric plan, and it was during this stay that the first attempts toward modernization were made in Afghanistan. Although he came for only a year, it was eight years before his work was completed. Electrical apparatus had to be hauled over rough mountain passes. The work elephants’ harnesses had to be made by hand. Labor was not skilled and whenever crops were harvested, his deliveries of supplies stopped!Written in a lively, readable style, Jewett’s letters and journal notes tell the story of the land of the Afghans. An isolated country of ancient caravan trails, mull-walled caravansaries, and villages -- it was little touched by Western ideas in the last days of the old monarchy. But forces have been unleashed in Asia which even remote Afghanistan is unlikely to escape. Jewett’s entertaining story will help westerners to understand coming events.

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• ON THE ROAD TO KABUL
• KABUL
• JABAL-US-SIRAJ, MOUNTAIN OF LIGHT
• THE OLD MAN WITH THE WHITE BEARD
• WINTER QUARTERS
• A TELEPHONE MESSAGE
• A GUEST IS A FRIEND FOR THREE DAYS
• FROM THE TOWER ROOM OF THE OLD FORT
• SPECIAL RUNNERS CARRY THE AMIR'S DAK
• THE RURAL KOHISTANIS
• IDLING AT BABER SARAI
• ABDUR RAHMAN, THE DURANI CHIEF
• IN THE SERVICE OF HIS MAJESTY
• THE BETTER MOON
• THE WAY OF A KING AT THE KABUL COURT
• A FIRMAN FOR LEAVE
• JALALABAD
• THE TURKISH HAJJI
• ON LEAVE IN INDIA
• THE ELEPHANT CARTS ARE COMING
• THE SPARROW AND THE WISDOM OF SA'DI
• THIEVES AND BUDMASHES
• THE LIGHT OF THE NATION AND THE FAITH
• WAITING FOR LEAVE
• THE PUNJAB BANKING COMPANY, LIMITED
• KOHISTAN BOUND
• THE PAST IS PAST
• THE BROWN MAN'S BURDEN
• FROM THE KOTI SETAREH ENCLOSURE
• LETTERS TO DAVID FAIRCHILD
• FED BY THE SNOWS OF THE HINDU KUSH
• THIS YEAR WAS AS MUCH AS FIFTY
• FOOL MOHAMMAD BLOWS THE BELLOWS
• KAFIR IDOLS
• UNCAUGHT SPARROWS ARE CHEAP
• WE GET UP WITH THE LARK
• KABUL OF RECENT TIMES
• A LAMP IS LIT
• THE CODE OF THE KINGDOM
• KISMET
• TAMAM SHUD
• GLOSSARY