Beyond the Khyber Pass The Road to British Disaster in the First Afghan War by John H. Waller. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990, 329 + xxxiii pp.

Abstract

John Waller, an American foreign service officer and retired inspector
general of the CIA, is now an independent writer based in McLean,
Virginia. He is also the author of Gordon of Khartoum and has travelled
extensively in the Middle East and Asia. The book is beautifully illustrated
with photographs of men, women, and events of the time, which
succeed in invoking visually the time period with which he is dealing: the
First Afghan-British War.
This thirty-chapter book is the story of the British failure in
Afghanistan in the 1840s, as Britain competed with Czarist Russia for
strategic advantage in Central Asia. Beyond the Khyber Pass is a sweeping
saga, chronicling the brutal wars and international intrigues of the
nineteenth century in India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Russia-the
"Great Game" that culminated in the siege of Kabul and the massacre of
sixteen thousand British soldiers, their families, and camp followers in
1842, the year of the First Afghan-British War. Waller tells the tale of
intrigue, treachery, and wild adventure with relish evident in the juicy
anecdotes and asides ...