Lowell Thomas was already known for his run of good luck. Back in 1916 the brash American reporter had been the first journalist to venture into the desolation of the Arabian deserts in search of the legendary Lawrence of Arabia. But now, with that story and the First World War behind him, Thomas was hungry again. He was looking for new adventures, new heroes and, most of all, new geographical challenges. He found them all in one country: Afghanistan! The Forbidden Kingdom, as it was popularly known in the 1920s, had turned her back on Europe and the West for several decades. Not to be put off, Thomas applied for a tourist visa, planning on writing a few articles about the colorful Pathan tribesmen who inhabited the desolate deserts of the south, and the secretive non-Muslim inhabitants of the mountainous north of Afghanistan. In fact, Thomas saw neither. The Afghans were suspicious of strangers, especially an American journalist. They promptly denied him his request for access to the fortified mountain kingdom. What followed was a two-year cat-and-mouse game between the determined American and the reclusive Afghans. Eventually, in 1927, the government in Kabul did agree to let Thomas enter their country, but only, Thomas learned later, after Amir Amalluah Khan, the king of Afghanistan, had personally intervened on his behalf. This is Lowell's story of how he slipped past the infamous Khyber Pass, that door of stone which had refused to open for two years, and made his way into a kingdom which had remained unchanged for more than a thousand years. It is a bold story, filled with the people of remote Central Asia, and depicts this important cultural crossroads before it was forever changed by the wars of the late twentieth century.

First Published in 1987, this volume offers a bibliography of biographies, autobiographies and books on contemporary politics by prominent 20th century figures on the topic of Iran.

Thirty miles long, and in places no more than sixteen meters wide, the Pass is the principal route through the great mountain borderlands between India and Central Asia -- and the path of invasion for generations of conquerors. In this ground-breaking book, Paddy Docherty charts its remarkable story -- one which involves so many of the world's great leaders and civilizations, from the influential Persian kings to Alexander the Great, from the White Huns to Genghis Khan, not to mention the Ancient Greeks and countless tribes of nomads and barbarians. He paints an illuminating picture of mountain warriors and religious visionaries, artists, poets and scientists as well as describing how around the Pass emerged three of the great world religions -- Buddhism, Sikhism and Islam. He also depicts the Pass' more modern significance as a lawless region of gunsmiths, drug markets and as a terrorist hideout. Just a few years after the Soviet Union was defeated by the Afghan Mujahideen, many thousands of soldiers from the United States, Britain and other nations are struggling to control Afghanistan. Through his own travels in this true frontier region Paddy Docherty brings this epic history into the twenty-first century.