In her 1964 book Land of the High Flags, Rosanne Klass wrote beautifully of the Kabul-that-was, a city struggling with the clash of modernity and tradition, with Westerners slowly invading its spaces and Kuchi nomads wandering its streets like they were never paved, the noble progressives desperately trying to lay the foundation of a modern state while the religious conservatives followed reluctantly (and peacefully) behind. Shortly after she left the second time, Bill Podlich took this 1967 photograph of the Paghman Gardens:
Though kind of Soviet looking, they nevertheless look pleasant. In 2007, however, Jon Nyswonger went back to the same spot.
Words fail.
More photographs here.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust