The Man Who Would Be King: The First American in Afghanistan - Softcover

Macintyre, Ben

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374529574 ISBN 13: 9780374529574

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005

Synopsis

The riveting story that inspired Kipling's classic tale and a John Huston movie

The true story of Josiah Harlan, a Pennsylvania Quaker and the first American ever to enter Afghanistan, has never been told before. Soldier, spy, doctor, naturalist, traveler and writer, Josiah Harlan wanted to be a king, with all the imperialist hubris of his times. In an amazing twenty-year journey around Central Asia, he was variously employed as surgeon to the Maharaja of Punjab, revolutionary agent for the exiled Afghan King, and then commander-in-chief of the Afghan armies. In 1838, he set off in the footsteps of Alexander the Great across the Hindu Kush and forged his own kingdom, only to be ejected from Afghanistan a few months later by the invading British.

Using a trove of newly-discovered documents, Harlan's own unpublished journals, and with a revised Preface detailing the unexpected discovery of Harlan's descendants, Ben Macintyre's The Man Who Would Be King tells the astonishing tale of the man who would be the first and last American king.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

'The Man Who Would be King' is the story of two British vagabonds who set off to establish a small kingdom among primitive tribesmen in Afghanistan. Only one of the men returns, and his condition is so bad that the newspaperman-narrator barely recognizes him.This collection brings together seventeen of Kipling's early stories, written between 1885 and 1888, when Kipling was working as a journalist in India. The stories include: 'The Phantom Rickshaw, ' 'Baa Baa, Black Sheep, ' 'At the Pit's Mouth, ' 'A Wayside Comedy, ' 'Gemini, ' 'The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes, ' 'At Twenty-Two, ' and 'With the Main Guard.'Audiobook read by Fred Williams.

About the Author:

Ben Macintyre is the author of several books, including The Englishman's Daughter (FSG, 2002). A senior writer and columnist for The Times of London, he was the newspaper's correspondent in New York, Paris, and Washington D.C. He now lives in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0374529574
• ISBN 13: 9780374529574
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368