MACMUNN'S HISTORY OF AFGHANISTAN, 1929

MACMUNN, George. Afghanistan from Darius to Amanullah. London: G. Bell & Sons, 1929. Octavo, original red cloth, original dust jacket. $600.

First edition of this history of Afghanistan, with frontispiece, 23 pages of illustrations and photographs, eight in-text maps, and a colored folding map.

Covering geography, early history, the clashes with India (which then included modern Pakistan) and the British, as well as a profiling the Durani dynasty. MacMunn “had a military career in the outposts of the Empire which read like a page from Kipling. Indeed, it was apt that he was a founder of the Kipling Society. A writer and a military historian, he was the author of about 40 books dealing with military matters… As Quartermaster-General of the Dardanelles he was mainly responsible for the evacuation of the British troops, supplies, and equipment. From 1888, when he joined the Royal Artillery in India, he took part in a succession of campaigns in the North-West Frontier” (Glasgow Herald obituary). The British North-West Frontier bordered on present-day Afghanistan. Pencil ownership signature.

Interior fine. Light wear to spine head and dampstaining to edges of boards. Mild wear to extremities of price-clipped dust jacket, soiling and evidence of dampstaining, tape repairs to verso, and a two-and-a-half-inch closed tear to rear panel. A very good copy. Scarce.