Author and compiler of a six‐volume Historical and Political Gazetteer of Afghanistan, the latest revision of a work first prepared by the general staff of the Indian Army as a secret reference source in 1871, and revised in 1882, 1894, 1907, and again in 1914; Historical and Political Who’s Who of Afghanistan; Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Afghanistan; Afghanistan 1900‐1923: A Diplomatic History; and a Dictionary of Afghan Wars, Revolutions and Insurgencies, nobody can deny that Ludwig Adamec brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to the compilation of this historical dictionary. As Jon Woronoff, the series editor, writes in his foreword, “These works have stood him in good stead for this book”, which might be taken to read, “He has been able to recycle for this work much that has been included in the others”. This would be sound common sense and in no way to be deplored.
By now the series format is familiar and widely recognized. The dictionary itself (pages 7‐329) consists of long and short entries on native Afghan and foreign historical figures, geographical locations of significance and importance, foreign treaties and alliances, political and religious movements, leaders and ideologies, tribes and tribal groups, scholars and mystics, educational institutions, literary figures, newspapers, wars and rebellions, ancient kingdoms, language groups, and, in this instance an animal, the Afghan Hound, all listed in one alphabetical sequence with frequent cross‐references. An introduction gives a brief modern political and religious history (the two are inextricably linked in this fiercely Muslim country) from 1747, when the Land of the Afghans first became a political entity, to the rise of the Taliban movement in the last three years. If the entries largely reflect the events of Afghanistan’s troubled history of the last 30 years, this is not to say that Adamec neglects the nineteenth century when Afghanistan was a major player in the Great Game, the British‐Russian contest for trade and influence in Central Asia; Russian and Indian Army officers taking their “leave” in exploring the steppes, river basins, and mountain passes in a sustained effort to advance their own country’s interests and to thwart their opposite numbers. Occasionally they encountered each other at some lonely spot, invited each other to dinner and attempted to discover the other’s intentions, but determined to keep their own cards very close to their chests.
The dictionary is followed by a much larger than usual chronology (pages 331‐428) more than half of which is devoted to the period 1960 to late March 1997, although it has to be said that some of the events recorded are routine and at times trivial. The third main section is the bibliography (pages 429‐499) presented in seven subdivided thematic sections. There is a single map which fully lives down to the lamentable cartographical standards of the Historical Dictionary series. Despite strong competition from other titles, it plumbs the depths of utter illegibility, and is the worst your correspondent has ever inspected. It really would be preferable to omit maps altogether since most of them only induce frustration in the reader. Surely someone on the editorial staff at Scarecrow Press possesses the necessary clout to demand either a vast improvement or a decision to discontinue their inclusion. In all other aspects this admirable historical dictionary must be rated as one of the best in the series.
