Afghanistan – First You Must Understand the Country and the Culture – Book Review


It’s very interesting but not a lot of people know the history of Afghanistan, even though our military has spent over eight years there, fighting one of the longest wars we’ve ever had. But a mere decade is a drop in the bucket of the known written recorded history of Afghanistan and her people. It is interesting that the United States is now taking an interest in the people, the culture, the landscape, and its possible future.

Indeed, I believe it pays to learn a little bit of the history before you make quick judgments of what the United States should do with its involvement of Afghanistan. There are far too many people watching the news who don’t really get it, but they should, especially as voters deciding which politicians are going to spend how much of our taxpayers money there.

There is a very good book I would recommend especially to homeschooling parents who might have kids, that they would like to see learn a little bit more about this country. This is a book that I do own, and I would like to recommend to you, the name of the book is;

“Afghanistan” (Countries and Cultures Collection) by Mary Englar, Capstone Press, Mankato, Minnesota, (2004), 64 pages, ISBN: 0-7368-2174-0.

One of the most fascinating parts of this book is the timeline from Alexander the great to the election of Hamid Karzai in 2002. This book also covers the Soviet Union evasion and occupation of Afghanistan in 1979. It also explains how the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 1996, and that’s when things really changed, and those changes eventually affected the United States to a much larger degree.

The book is broken into chapters, but on the very first chapter it explains many of the facts that you need to know about the country, such as the population, resources, agriculture, and way of life. The Afghanistan history is completely interesting, and its economy is more interesting than you might believe. The hardship of daily life and culture is also quite interesting and it has really changed over the years.

There is a recipe in this book on how to make khati cookies, which is very cool and they aren’t that hard to make. I enjoyed making these cookies as I read the book one afternoon, and I felt a sense of friendship with the Afghan people. I hope you will too, please consider buying this book and thinking on it.


Source by Lance Winslow