Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. — 317 p.
This book explores how the bureaucratic ruling elites in the state apparatus, lacking public support, relied on imperial powers for economic, military, and political assistance, and how an assortment of established and rising imperial powers since the eighteenth century exploited the situation to advance their own agendas. It undertakes an analysis of the dynamics of political development in Afghanistan and policies of imperial powers that influenced the direction of development in the country, as well as the contributing issues of tribalism, ethnicity and regionalism that constituted the very fabric of Afghanistan’s society.