''Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan'' is a 2013 history book about the

First Anglo-Afghan War The First Anglo-Afghan War () was fought between the British Empire and the Emirate of Kabul from 1838 to 1842. The British initially successfully invaded the country taking sides in a succession dispute between emir Dost Mohammad Khan ( Bara ...

written by Scottish historian

William Dalrymple William Benedict Hamilton-Dalrymple (born 20 March 1965) is a Delhi-based Scottish people, Scottish historian and art historian, as well as a curator, broadcaster and critic. He spends nine months of each year on his goat farm in India. He i ...

and published by

Bloomsbury Bloomsbury is a district in the West End of London, part of the London Borough of Camden in England. It is considered a fashionable residential area, and is the location of numerous cultural institution, cultural, intellectual, and educational ...

Background

During the making of the book, Dalrymple went to

Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

to make use of Afghanistan's national archives, local secondhand booksellers and remnants of private libraries abandoned by aristocratic owners. This allowed him access to epic poems composed immediately after the First Anglo-Afghan War. He used these sources to reconstruct insider accounts of Afghan leaders that are not generally known to British audiences.

Summary

''Return of a King'' is an account of the First Anglo-Afghan War, which was fought between the British

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...

and

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

. The conflict resulted in the near complete destruction of an entire British army, with 4,500 British and Indian soldiers, plus 12,000 of their

camp follower Camp followers are civilians who follow armies. There are two common types of camp followers; first, the spouses and children of soldiers, who follow their spouse or parent's army from place to place; the second type of camp followers have histori ...

s dying during a disastrous retreat. It was the first major conflict of the

Great Game The Great Game was a rivalry between the 19th-century British Empire, British and Russian Empire, Russian empires over influence in Central Asia, primarily in Emirate of Afghanistan, Afghanistan, Qajar Iran, Persia, and Tibet. The two colonia ...

, a 19th-century competition for power and influence in

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

between the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

and the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

Reception

Jason Burke Jason Burke (born 1970) is a British journalist and the author of several non-fiction books. he was a correspondent covering Africa for ''The Guardian'', based in Johannesburg, having previously been based in New Delhi as the same paper's South ...

of ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...

'' wrote, "''Return of a King'' is perhaps the most directly relevant to the present day. The author spent time in both Afghanistan and Pakistan during its research and elaborates on the obvious parallels with the current situation,"

Barnaby Rogerson Barnaby Rogerson (born 17 May 1960) is a British author, television presenter and publisher. He has written extensively about the Muslim world, including a biography of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, and numerous travel guides. Rogerson was born i ...

in ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' says "''Return of a King'' is not just an animated and highly literate retelling of a chapter of early 19th-century British military history, but also a determined attempt to reach out and influence the politicians and policy-makers of our modern world. The parallels between the disastrous British occupation of Afghanistan in 1839, and the post 9/11 occupation of Afghanistan by the US and some of its

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

allies, are so insistent that they begin to sound like the chorus of a Greek tragedy." Rupert Edis in ''

The Sunday Telegraph ''The Sunday Telegraph'' is a British broadsheet newspaper, first published on 5 February 1961 and published by the Telegraph Media Group, a division of Press Holdings. It is the sister paper of ''The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Tele ...

'' said: "As well as going deep into dangerous parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan to research his book, Dalrymple has recovered some remarkable new Afghan and Indian sources. We see beyond the stereotypes of treacherous Afghan 'fanatics' to the complex and remarkable individuals some of them were."

Max Hastings Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings (; born 28 December 1945) is a British journalist and military historian, who has worked as a foreign correspondent for the BBC, editor-in-chief of ''The Daily Telegraph'', and editor of the ''Evening Standard''. ...

in ''

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

'' described the book as "Dazzling... Dalrymple is a master storyteller, whose special gift lies in the use of indigenous sources, so often neglected by imperial chroniclers... Almost every page of Dalrymple’s splendid narrative echoes with latter-day reverberations."

Cole Wehrle Cole Wehrle is an American board game designer and academic. He has designed the board games ''Root'', '' Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile,'' and '' Arcs'' at Leder Games, and he co-owns Wehrlegig Games with his brother, designing the histori ...

, designer of '' Pax Pamir'', praised the book for its "gripping narrative style and incredible archival range". However, Pakistani-British historian Farrukh Husain, writing in ''

The Frontier Post ''The Frontier Post'' is an independent English language daily newspaper founded in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1985. It publishes from Peshawar, Lahore, Islamabad, Karachi, and Quetta. History When the paper was founded in 1985, there were no promi ...

'', criticized the book for having an orientalist perspective and for not properly sourcing its claims.

Awards and honours

''Return of a King'' won the 2015 Hemingway Prize and the 2015

Ryszard Kapuściński Award The Ryszard Kapuściński Award () is a major annual Polish international literary prize, the most important distinction in the genre of literary reportage. History The award was founded to celebrate and promote most worthwhile reportage books w ...

. It was also a finalist for the 2013

Samuel Johnson Prize The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction, formerly the Samuel Johnson Prize, is an annual British book prize for the best non-fiction writing in the English language. It was founded in 1999 following the demise of the NCR Book Award. With its m ...

, the

Duff Cooper Prize The Duff Cooper Prize (currently known as the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize) is a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of history, biography, political science or occasionally poetry, published in English or French. The prize was estab ...

and the

Hessell-Tiltman Prize The PEN Hessell-Tiltman Prize is awarded to the best work of non-fiction of historical content covering a period up to and including World War II, and published in the year of the award. The books are to be of high literary merit, but not primari ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Return of a King 2012 non-fiction books History books about the British Empire History books about Afghanistan Books about foreign relations of the United Kingdom Books about British India British non-fiction books First Anglo-Afghan War Books by William Dalrymple Bloomsbury Publishing books