A swell history (I'm planning to engineer a comeback of the adjective swell) of the Great Game and the catastrophic British war in Afghanistan. Seems to have many parallels to our current misadventure there. Includes some newly translated Afghan poetry that deepens our comprehension of the story and the way it is thought of in Afghanistan today. One of the many pleasures of reading history is the reader's knowledge of the approaching catastrophe. I find it quite similar to watching a horror movie and the principle character decides to go back to get the cat. The audience screams for her not to be such an idiot or covers their eyes and sinks lower in their seat. This story is like that.
For some reason I associate this story with the poem and movie Gunga Din, but this might be erroneous.