What George W. Bush called the "first war of the twenty-first century"
actually began more than 2,300 years ago when Alexander the Great led
his army into what is now a sprawling ruin in northern Afghanistan.
Accounts of Alexander's invasion of ancient Bactria read eerily like
news from our own day. In this vivid, meticulously researched, and
elegantly narrated book, Frank L. Holt follows Alexander's historical,
archaeological, and numismatic legacy back and forth between ancient
Bactria and modern Afghanistan. Recounting the plight of the most
powerful leader of the time as he led the most sophisticated army of its
day into the treacherous world of tribal warlords, Holt describes those
grueling campaigns and the impact they had on Alexander, his generals,
their troops, and the world. Into the Land of Bones also examines the
conflict from the point of view of the local warlords who pushed the
invading Greeks to the limits of their endurance--and sometimes beyond,
into mania and mutiny. The lively narrative situates the current war in
Afghanistan in a broader historical perspective.
Holt explains how the three modern superpowers that have invaded
Afghanistan--Britain in the nineteenth century, the Soviets in the
twentieth, and the United States in the twenty-first--are continuing the
struggle that Alexander began centuries ago. That this legacy continues
to play itself out today is a testament to the timeliness of Holt's
fascinating and original account.
