The Pathans 550 B.C. - A.D. "1957" By Sir Olaf Caroe. Book Review

 

The Pathans 550 B.C. - A.D. "1957" By Sir Olaf Caroe. Book Review

The Pathans 550 B.C. - A.D. "1957" By Sir Olaf Caroe. A Social And Political History Of The Pathans. 

Now Rated A Classic - Is The Last Standard Reference Work Of Significance About This Race Rendered By An Official Who Served During The Colonial Period. He Was Also Amongst The Last British Governors Of North-West Frontier Province.

Sir Olaf Caroe’s acquaintance with the "Pathans-Pakhtuns or Pashtuns" is spread over a period of nearly sixty years. He first went to North-West Frontier in early 1916 as an officer in The Queen’s Regiment and was stationed in Peshawar and Nowshera.

After the First World War he joined the Indian Civil Service and, following three years in the Punjab, was posted to the Frontier in the Political Service where he held, in succession, charge of the Districts of Mardan, Hazara, Kohat, and Peshawar itself. He was later appointed Chief Secretary when the Frontier became a Governor’s Province.

In 1934 he was sent to Delhi in the Foreign Department in which he eventually served as the Viceroy’s Foreign Secretary throughout the Second World War.

The Government’s dealing with the North-West Frontier, Baluchistan, and of course the independent peripheral state of Afghanistan, were in his hands over a period of some ten years. Later, in 1946–7, he crowned his career by becoming the last British Governor of the Frontier before independence. He expired on 23 November 1981.

The Pathans is a labour of love and in its pages the Pathan and the grandeur of his scenic setting spring to urgent life. The Pathans themselves recognize this work as the locus classicus of their history.

This impression includes an Epilogue written by the author (just prior to his death) in the light of recent events in Afghanistan.