В 1838 году молодой авантюрист, окруженный своими туземными войсками и восседающий на слоне, поднял американский флаг на вершине Гиндукуша и объявил себя принцем Гора, наследником Александра Великого. Джозайя Харлан, первый американец, ступивший на землю Афганистана, послужил прототипом для персонажа Редьярда Киплинга "Человек, который хотел стать королём", но подлинная история его жизни куда удивительнее вымысла. Солдат, шпион, врач, натуралист и писатель Харлан отправился в дикие края Центральной Азии после неудачного романа в 1820 году. После краткой службы в армии Ост-Индской компании в качестве хирурга он поступил на службу к свергнутому афганскому монарху Шах Шудже, а затем пробрался в Кабул, переодевшись мусульманским священником, чтобы разжечь восстание. В последующие два десятилетия он сыграл ключевую роль в кровавой политике региона. Будучи командующим афганской армией, он стал первым полководцем со времен Александра Великого, проведшим войска через Гиндукуш. Там, в вершине имперского высокомерия, он объявил себя принцем. Но год спустя он вернулся в Америку, бесцеремонно изгнанный вторгшейся британской армией. Он умер в безвестности в Сан-Франциско, по-прежнему уверяя скептически настроенных слушателей, что когда-то был афганским королём.
Харлан был необычайной смесью качеств: эксцентричный, любопытный и безрассудно храбрый, он был также проницательным наблюдателем, понимавшим афганский народ как ни один другой иностранец до него. Его предупреждения об опасностях империализма удивительно актуальны в наше время, когда отношения Запада и Афганистана находятся под пристальным наблюдением. Используя кладезь вновь обнаруженных документов, включая долго утраченные дневники Харлана, Бен Макинтайр пошел по его следам, чтобы раскрыть поразительную, неизвестную главу истории Большой Игры.
Следует отметить, что в этом описании невозможно было воспроизвести иллюстрации, которые присутствовали в оригинальной печатной версии.
Josiah the Great is the true life story of Josiah Harland, born in 1796 in Harmony, Iowa, who later became the First African General of Afghanistan and a central character in later nineteenth century writers such as Rudyard Kipling.
Ben Macintyre in this book sets out to dispel the myth of Harland as Kipling construed him. Heightening the sense of adventure and melodrama that Kipling had built around Harland's life, Macintyre recounts a wholly different man – one who took credit for something he obviously did not do, whose ideas about reality were firmly upheld by the society around him, and who serenely deceived all those who knew him in Central Asia, even as the deceit exposed him and his associates to personal peril and sometimes to death.
Glorification of an accurate history can provide us with laughter, amusement, learning as well as let us grasp the command over the time in perfect clarity. The period of 1800 has found a palpable expression through defying celestial ordinances among the literature. Josiah, The Great: A Brief Sketch Of A Man Who Swore An Oath Under A Lustrous Sun has substantive discussions with the morals of slavery during the rule of Josiah HarlannoteMARTINB. A critical of the material statutory entirety-have uncovered flashes of exceptional occurrences marked on activity of historical changing. This compilation tells about a man of words and works gifted with notable courage, Hamlin Harlaninn стремится к обретению'title:p4z0';Хамлин отмечает: "Дерзкие до маниловски отваги" and genuinely dangerous to achieve hispurposesafinityofobservationsintoanewform,Thegreat.'[email protected]'entrenchmentsandconfessionswithwit And insight a new horizon unrolls, layering grandparents''books Allowing full revelation into Humankind'great voyage. Josephus made Man a masterful dramatist.William Shakespeare discloses love's great complications. Bence Macintyre delves into understanding'How Josiah Becomes Token n constitutional instrument'has exuded richness'substance.Thanks to its Bald Suitability'Lack of Sufficient'interspersed prefatory conversations from country to country,'dictated the screams of continental warfare,King of Afghanistan and American citizen, brilliant author, powerful physician, inspired statesman, famed hunter, possessed poet, captivating protagonist, unforgettable character, bravura hitters, JeosilhasRathanas noted:Let them heed and correct counters, Firme the pedestal you elevate a great man and donught stand: The will to fight, the valor, transmits a far greater enunciation.
Электронная Книга «Josiah the Great: The True Story of The Man Who Would Be King» написана автором Ben Macintyre в году.
Минимальный возраст читателя: 0
Язык: Английский
ISBN: 9780007406852
Описание книги от Ben Macintyre
In the year 1838, a young adventurer, surrounded by his native troops and mounted on an elephant, raised the American flag on the summit of the Hindu Kush and declared himself Prince of Ghor, the heir to Alexander the Great.Josiah Harlan, the first American to set foot in Afghanistan, would become the model for Kipling’s ‘The Man Who Would be King’, but the true story of his life is stranger than fiction. A soldier, spy, doctor, naturalist and writer, Harlan set off into the wilds of Central Asia after a failed love affair in 1820. Following a brief stint as a surgeon in the East India Company’s army, he joined the court of the deposed Afghan monarch Shah Shujah, and then slipped into Kabul disguised as a Muslim priest to foment rebellion. For the next two decades he would play a pivotal role in the bloody politics of the region.As commander of the Afghan army, he became the first general since Alexander the Great to lead an army across the Hindu Kush. There, in a crowning act of imperial hubris, he declared himself a prince. But a year later he was on his way back to America, unceremoniously ousted by an invading British army. He would die in obscurity in San Francisco, still boasting to sceptical listeners that he had once been an Afghan king.Harlan was an extraordinary mixture of parts: eccentric, inquisitive and brave to the point of lunacy, he was also an acute observer who understood the Afghan people as no foreigner had done before. His warnings of the dangers of imperialism have an uncanny echo at a time when relations between the West and Afghanistan are under intense scrutiny.Using a trove of newly discovered documents, including Harlan’s long-lost journals, Ben Macintyre has followed Harlan’s footsteps to uncover an astonishing, untold chapter in the history of the Great Game.Note that it has not been possible to include the same picture content that appeared in the original print version.
