"This new book guides the reader through over 2000 years of military history in the region that we now know as Afghanistan, from ancient times up to the European colonialism epitomized by the romanticism of the Great Game. Jalali traces the way in which armies commanded by Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, the Muslim conquerors, Chinggis Khan, Tamerlane, and others shaped the region, leaving their unique and indelible mark on this ancient land and helping to create the Afghan empire. Because the history of Afghanistan is strongly influenced by the dynamics of its peripheral status between major regional centers of power and the impact of its location on the geopolitical fault line astride South, Central, and West Asia, Jalali presents his study of Afghanistan's military history in this context. One reader noted that Jalali "clearly explains how the topography of Afghanistan constrained and enabled military affairs over more a thousand years, which is an extraordinary and (as far as I know) unparalleled achievement in scholarship.""--