JOSIAH THE GREAT: THE TRUE STORY OF THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING

Book ID/图书代码： 00470004B06257

English Summary/英文概要： In the year 1838 a young adventurer, surrounded by his native troops and mounted on an elephant, raised the American flag on the summit of the Hindu Kush and declared himself Prince of Ghor, the spiritual and military heir to Alexander the Great.
Josiah Harlan, the first American ever to set foot in Afghanistan, would become the model for Rudyard Kipling’s The Man who Would be King, but the true story of his life is stranger than fiction. A soldier, spy, doctor, naturalist, traveler and writer, Harlan set off into the wilds of Central Asia after a failed love affair in 1820. following a brief stint as a surgeon in the East India Company’s army, he joined the court of the deposed Afghan monarch Shah Shujah, then slipped into Kabul disguised as a Muslim Holy man to foment rebellion. For the next two decades he would have a pivotal role in the bloody politics of the region, playing one potentate off against another.
As commander-in-chief of the Afghan army, he became the first general since Alexander the Great to lead an army across the Hindu Kush. There, in a crowning act of imperial hubris, he declared himself a prince. But a year later he was on his way back to America, unceremoniously ousted by an invading British army. He would die in obscurity in San Francisco, still boasting to skeptical listeners that he had once been an Afghan king.
Harlan was an extraordinary mixture of parts: eccentric, inquisitive, tough as camel leather and brave to the point of lunacy, he was also an acute and sensitive observer who came to understand the Afghan people as no foreigner had done before. His warnings of the dangers of imperialism have an uncanny modern echo, at a time when relations between the West and Afghanistan are under intense scrutiny.
Using a trove of newly discovered documents, including Harlan’s long-lost journals, Ben Macintyre, author of the acclaimed A Foreign Field, has followed Harlan’s footsteps to uncover an astonishing, untold chapter in the history of the Great Game.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 1838年，一个年轻的冒险家骑在一头大象的身上，手举美国国旗，在当地阿富汗军队的拥戴下，宣称自己是一个亲王，是亚历山大大帝的精神和军事继承人。这个人就是最早进入阿富汗的美国人乔西亚-哈兰。他是一个军人，间谍，医生，自然学家，旅行者和作家。1820年经历了一段失败的恋情后，他到了中亚。先在东印度公司的军队中当了一段时间的外科医生，然后与被废黜的阿富汗王室有了联系。他装扮成穆斯林圣徒，潜入喀布尔煽动叛乱。此后的20年中，他在当地的政治中发挥了重要的作用。后来，他被入侵的英国军队赶走，回到了旧金山。作者根据最近发现的一些文件，包括乔西亚-哈兰本人的日记，记叙了他的这段经历。

Awards/获奖情况：

About the Author/作者介绍： Ben Macintyre曾是“泰晤士报”住国会的采访记者和该报驻纽约，巴黎和华盛顿的通讯员。他的著作有“被遗忘的祖国”，“外国土地”，等。

Format:HARDCOVER

Rights Status/版权销售情况：Simplified Chinese/简体中文：AVAILABLE

Complex/Traditional Chinese/繁体中文：AVAILABLE

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