Finding information about Afghanistan

17 September 2001
If one wants to find out more, where to turn? It appears that there IS no 'Afghanistan' volume in the Country Studies series

Jane's.com is at the moment not accessible, but a recent summary (heavy on al-Quaeda and bin Laden) is worth looking at.

JSTOR has a few items, none very recent:

A Close Look at the Demography of Afghanistan (James Trussell, Eleanor Brown Demography, Vol. 16, No. 1. (Feb., 1979), pp. 137-156)

Afghanistan: Population and Development in the "Land of Insolence" (Samuel S. Lieberman Population and Development Review, Vol. 6, No. 2. (Jun., 1980), pp. 271-298)

Soviet Islam and World Revolution (Martha Brill Olcott World Politics, Vol. 34, No. 4. (Jul., 1982), pp. 487-504)

Internal Battles and External Wars: Politics, Learning, and the Soviet Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Sarah E. Mendelson World Politics, Vol. 45, No. 3. (Apr., 1993), pp. 327-360)

Annie offers 287 records (many duplicated...) with 'afghanistan' in the Subject, many of them GovDocs (hearings and suchlike), and Keyword search gets 252 items
United States. Central Intelligence Agency
Ethnolinguistic groups in Afghanistan
[Washington, D.C.? : Central Intelligence Agency, 1997]
Leyburn-GovDoc-Level 2 PREX 3.10/4:AF 3/10

Margolis, Eric S
War at the top of the world : the struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir, and Tibet / Eric S. Margolis
New York : Routledge, 2000
Leyburn-Level 4 DS371.3 .M37 2000

Rashid, Ahmed
Taliban : militant Islam, oil, and fundamentalism in Central Asia / Ahmed Rashid
New Haven : Yale University Press, c2000
Leyburn-Level 4 DS371.2 .R367 2000

Grazda, Edward
Afghanistan diary 1992-2000 / photographs and texts by Edward Grazda
New York : PowerHouse Books, 2000
Leyburn-Level 4 DS371.3 .G73 2000

Jalali, Ali Ahmad
The other side of the mountain : Mujahideen Tactics in the Sovier-Afghan War / by Ali Ahmad Jalali and Lester W. Grau ; introduction by John E. Rhodes
Quantico, Va. : U.S. Marine Corps, Studies and Analysis Division, [1999?]
Leyburn-GovDoc-Level 2 D 214.13:M 86

Cooley, John K., 1927-
Unholy wars : Afghanistan, America and international terrorism / John K. Cooley
London ; Sterling, Va. : Pluto Press, 1999
Leyburn-Level 3 JZ1480.A57 A3 1999

Fundamentalism reborn? : Afghanistan and the Taliban / edited by William Maley
New York : New York University Press, 1998
Leyburn-Level 4 DS371.3 .F86 1998

Marsden, Peter Richard Valentine
The Taliban : war, religion and the new order in Afghanistan / Peter Marsden
Karachi Lahore Islamabad : Oxford Univ. Press ; London ; New York : Zed Books Ltd., c1998
Leyburn-Level 4 DS371.3 .M37 1998

Google produces 1.3M hits for 'afghanistan'... among the useful:

CIA World Factbook 2000

official Web site of the Presidential Palace of the Islamic State of Afghanistan (google cache)

Ethnologue entry for Afghanistan (languages/cultures)

Afghanistan's Web Site ('Afghan-American community')

politicalresources.net array of links

UNHCR Country Profile

Washington Post Afghanistan page

The Plight of Afghanistan (US State Department)

asiaco.com Afghanistan links

Fact Sheet from US DOE

afghan-network.net (Toronto-based --see their collection of maps and a selection of "Hate Mails & Non-Hate Mails sent to Afghan Network"

18 Sept
Afghanistan data from UNESCAP (UNITED NATIONS ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMISSION FOR ASIA AND THE PACIFIC)