Books on Afghanistan
recommended by scholars and authors
Last updated: February 02, 2025
Five Books has a wide range of interviews dedicated to books about Afghanistan or that touch on it. Unsurprisingly, many of our Afghanistan interviews focus on the country’s protracted political crisis.A good starting point is the recommendations from leading academic Thomas Barfield. An anthropologist at Boston University, he chooses books to explain the culture and politics of Afghanistan.
In 2021, the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year was awarded to a book set in Kabul: Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul by Taran Khan (we also have a short Q&A with the author).
The best books on Central Asia’s Golden Age, recommended by S. Frederick Starr
Central Asia’s history is rarely a focus for students in the West, but its flourishing cities and great thinkers once made it one of the world’s most dynamic and important regions. Frederick Starr, a leading expert on Central Asia and author of a number of books about it, talks us through the highlights of an area that was so much more than just a stopping place on the ancient Silk Roads.
Andrew Exum recommends the best books for Understanding the War in Afghanistan
The US has repeatedly misdiagnosed the war in Afghanistan. Former soldier, Andrew Exum, tells us about flawed policy, unhappy outcomes and what could and should have been different.
The best books on Afghanistan, recommended by Thomas Barfield
Anthropologist and Afghanistan expert Thomas Barfield gives a panoramic view of Afghanistan, from founding dynasties to the failed central Asian states of today. He picks the best books on Afghanistan.
The best books on The Afghanistan-Pakistan border, recommended by Gretchen Peters
The award-winning journalist and author says she laughed out loud when she read Greg Mortenson’s line that if he was killed in Pakistan, he knew it would be in a car accident and not by a terrorist
The Best Books by Foreigners on Afghanistan, recommended by Sandy Gall
The veteran reporter and frequent visitor to Afghanistan tells us about the country he loves, and the Westerners (and Central Asian conqueror) who wrote engagingly about it.
