Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story, by Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald (City Lights Books 2009)

The husband and wife team of Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould first travelled to Afghanistan in 1981. It is their nearly 30 years' of experience that provides the grist for Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story, in which they painstakingly describe the country's little-known history from antiquity to the 21st century.

Invisible History: your purchase in part benefits Levantine Cultural CenterInvisible History begins with a moving introduction by Sima Wali, founder of Refugee Women in Development, a non-profit organization that works to rebuild the lives of war-torn women. She openly wonders how the suffering of the Afghan people can be so trivial to the rest of the world. Gould and Fitzgerald share her anguish and dedicate their book to her. Wali implies that the American desertion of the Afghan people after the Cold War was, in part, the reason why so many Afghans became indoctrinated by the Taliban.

In the Prologue, the authors comment that Americans ignore Afghanistan''s future at the risk "of our own peril." Invisible History starts with a deep history of Afghanistan, before it was considered a country, to provide the necessary background for understanding the significance of its future. We learn that Afghans descend from Israelites, a surprising connection. They are specifically descendents of King Saul and named after the Commander and Chief of King Solomon. Interested readers can learn more about this ancient heritage from Asiatick Researches.

Within the first few chapters, we are taken through why Afghanistan is famously known for being unconquerable, from Alexander the Great's failed attempt at conquering Afghanistan in 330 BCE to the British government's devastating defeats in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Part One also includes great leaders such as Amanullah who established the first liberal government in Afghanistan. Afghan history swings from fundamental Islamism to liberal Islamism and is exemplified throughout the book.

In the middle to late 1800s, women were discouraged from wearing head coverings and even given a secular education beside men. There were civil liberties for minority groups, and religious traditions such as revenge killings were prohibited. Gould and Fitzgerald believe these steps toward egalitarianism were inspired by the father of modern Turkey, Kamal Ataturk.

Elizabeth Gould and Paul Fitzgerald: the authors spoke on Afghanistan at Levantine Cultural CenterThe authors explain why the end to such a progressive government was caused not so much by religious fundamentalists, but by the subversive powers of the British who sought a stronghold in the region. Britain was able to buttress the tribes that opposed Amanullah's liberalism. Contrary to public opinion, Amanullah's expulsion was caused by foreign sources feeding into the already dissenting religious opinion. The country returned quickly in the early 1900s to a dictatorship and monarchy based on strict Islamic practices.

The authors reveal that after a series of leaders with different visions, Afghanistan became more enticing for foreign interests. As a result of antagonism with the Soviets during WW II, Franklin D. Roosevelt used missionaries, diplomats, humanitarian aid works, engineers, spies, and the military to pursue U.S. influence with the Afghans. Secretary of State George Marshall, seeing Afghanistan as a "unique competition" with the Soviet Union, advised President Truman to invest even more American "ambassadorial" ties into the country.

Gould and Fitzgerald make sure that this history is exposed as an effort by the U.S to infiltrate a Soviet-occupied country and establish "a permanent state of war." The authors show how senior advisors to President Truman, such as Paul Henry Nitze, are responsible for the significant American mindset against the Soviet Union produced through National Security Directive #68. Seeing Eurasia as the "World Island" to which control would come and using Afghanistan's dependence on the Soviets for fuel as an excuse, the U.S. "rebuffed Afghan requests for military assistance."

According to the authors, the simultaneous U.S. coup in Iran that overthrew Mossadegh caused lasting mistrust toward Americans in the Muslim world. Afghan leader Daoud, who had originally sought help from the United States, was labeled the "Red Prince" for his reliance on the Soviet Union. He bartered weapons and other resources from the Soviet Union out of desperation, not coalition. This action was perceived as a lost opportunity by the U.S. to secure Afghanistan's military alliance. The U.S. then desperately sought to build communal ties in Afghanistan through service projects and diplomacy.

These feudal attempts proved unsuccessful and the U.S. resorted to using religious tribes, much like the British had, as a means to undermine the Soviet's influence. Afghan universities were also infiltrated by CIA operatives, and students became susceptible targets for U.S. ideas. Former extreme Muslim dissenters were dug up in an effort to rekindle their activism against their government. Gould and Fitzgerald's depiction of the CIA's ties in various efforts to undermine the Afghan government and thus the Soviet Union is remarkable. Their book uncovers a vast series of events, incited by the U.S., which later prove significant to the current condition of Afghanistan.

In their chapter, "A New Decade: A New and More Dangerous Afghanistan," Gould and Fitzgerald discuss how Afghanistan became a sort of meddling ground for a diverse group of Middle Easterners in the 1990s looking to build the underground movement against "Soviet Central Asia and nearby Shiite Iran." Warnings that the U.S. needed to help Afghan leaders "take back their country from the Islamic extremists...fell on deaf ears." Ten years later, the hints of a revolutionary uprising from these extremists took the form of material destruction throughout Afghanistan and the world. The leader of this rebel movement, known as the Taliban, was Osama bin Laden.

The rest of Gould and Fitzgerald's book discusses the build-up to September 11, 2001, the U.S. response, and the failure to separate the Taliban from Al Qaeda in the War on Terror. At first warmly accepted by the Afghan public, U.S. troops entered Afghanistan in search of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Having driven these two groups past the Durrand Line into Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, there was a short lull in violence and thus, a false sense of peace. However, new terrorist groups permeated the areas that were once in competition with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The problems stemming from these violent pockets has devastated many more innocent Afghans and foreign troops.

The authors don't pretend to have a cure-all for the on-going crisis in Afghanistan and the greater Middle East and South Asia, but they do offer profound insight to a once obscure state. Their ability to dissect a wide-spread and ever-changing region is crucial in the twenty-first century. Politicians, academics, and journalists alike will find Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story rewarding on an individual and collective level. Gould and Fitzgerald in their last chapter, dedicated to President Obama, remind us that Kabul today is more of a British, Soviet, and America creation than it is Afghan one.

Gould and Fitzgerald continue to stay abreast of developments in Afghanistan with their blog, updated frequently, at invisiblehistory.com.

Dana Siegelman is a research associate and writer with the Levantine Cultural Center. She is pursuing a Master's in International Relations at the University of Cambridge (UK). Read her review on The Hebrew Republic by Bernard Avishai.