BOOK REVIEW : Afghan Buzkashi: Power Games and Gamesmen

This article provides a scholarly review of the book "Afghan Buzkashi: Power Games and Gamesmen." The reviewer summarizes the book's central metaphor, which uses the traditional and famously rough Afghan sport of buzkashi (goat-grabbing) as a lens to understand the nature of Afghan politics. The review highlights the book's key arguments about the fragmented, competitive, and highly personalized nature of power in Afghanistan, where political actors, like buzkashi players, form temporary alliances in a relentless and often violent struggle for supremacy. The reviewer assesses the strengths of this ethnographic and anthropological approach to political analysis, praising its ability to capture the deep-seated cultural and social dynamics that shape Afghan political life in a way that traditional international relations theories cannot. The review concludes by affirming the book's importance as a creative and insightful text for anyone seeking to understand the complex and often-bewildering world of Afghan politics.

This article offers a critical review of the insightful book, "Afghan Buzkashi: Power Games and Gamesmen." The review begins by explaining the powerful central metaphor of the book. It describes the sport of buzkashi, a chaotic and violent contest where horsemen vie for control of a goat carcass, as a perfect analogy for the fluid and ruthless nature of Afghan politics. The reviewer summarizes the author's main thesis: that to understand Afghanistan, one must move beyond the formal institutions of the state and instead analyze the informal networks of power, the constantly shifting alliances, and the central role of charismatic strongmen, or "gamesmen." The review would praise the book for its deep cultural understanding and its ethnographic richness, which provides a "thick description" of the Afghan political landscape. It would highlight how the book's anthropological approach offers a more profound explanation for the country's history of political fragmentation and its resistance to centralized rule than conventional geopolitical analyses. The review would likely conclude that "Afghan Buzkashi" is an indispensable and highly original work, a classic text that offers a timeless and essential key to deciphering the complex power dynamics that have defined Afghanistan for centuries.