The Man Who Would Be King
The First American in Afghanistan
By Ben Macintyre
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
HC, 351 pg. US$25/C$37.50
ISBN: 0-3742-0178-1

The American king

By Steven Martinovich
web posted May 10, 2004

It is considered, rightfully so, a brilliant victory. In order to topple
the Taliban, the U.S. Department of Defense decided to make
extensive use of Afghan tribes to battle the theocratic regime.
Aided by the Americans, Afghan soldiers swept across the
countryside doing battle in the same manner their ancestors had
centuries before. Through diplomacy and bribery, a fighting force
was built that was ideal for the harsh lands of Afghanistan and
overthrew the existing political order. It was the first time that it
was ever done.

Except, of course, that it wasn't. Over 160 years ago an
American rode into Afghanistan at the head of a native army with
dreams of being crowned king. His story was largely lost to
history until Ben Macintyre's rousing The Man Who Would Be
King: The First American in Afghanistan, the chronicle of Josiah
Harlan, a man who dreamed of empire in the same lands that
Alexander the Great's army once conquered.

Harlan was born in 1799 to a large and prosperous
Pennsylvanian Quaker family. Although the West had yet to be
opened up, thanks to his love of classical literature Harlan
looked to the East for adventure. That led him to join a merchant
ship bound for Asia and while there he learned that his fiancée
had spurned him for another man. With little left to draw him
back to the United States, Harlan decided to seek fame and
fortune in lands that still had yet to be fully explored. He joined
the British army as a surgeon, despite an utter lack of medical
qualifications, and ended up in Burma.

His real adventure, however, didn't begin until he mustered out
and traveled to northern India. There he met the deposed king of
Afghanistan Shah Shujah al-Moolk and inspired by the stories of
Alexander, he promised the monarch that he would travel to
Kabul and spark an uprising against Dost Mohammed Khan,
usurper of the throne. Harlan's price was that he be made
Shujah's vizier, something that the exiled king readily agreed to.
After recruiting a small army in 1827, Harlan set off for Kabul.

Once there Harlan almost forgot his mission as he became utterly
captivated by Kabul's beauty. "The city is a jewel encircled by
emerald, with flowers and blossoms whose odours perfume the
air with fragrances elsewhere unknown," he wrote. After
spending some time in the court of Dost Mohammed, a man he
grew to respect more than his ostensible employer Shujah,
Harlan made his way to Lahore where he joined the court of
Ranjit Singh. Here he found a one-eyed, alcoholic ruler with an
insatiable sexual appetite. Harlan eventually found himself the
governor of a prosperous province.

This would be adventure enough any one man but the
remarkable Harlan was far from finished. After Singh's short war
with Dost Mohammed over Peshawar, Harlan was expelled
from the Sikh's service for allegedly counterfeiting money.
Following a brief stay in India, he once again made his way to
Kabul and Dost Mohammed's service. There to help train the
king's soldiers, Harlan was eventually made king of the fierce
Hazaras.

At about the same time Afghanistan became the focus of
attention for both the British and the Russians. In an effort to
prevent growing Russian influence, the British sent a 15 000
strong army to restore their ally Shujah to the throne. They were
initially successful but as history records, the army that marched
into Afghanistan was destroyed a few short years later by none
other than Dost Mohammed's son. By that time Harlan,
disgusted by British abuses, was back in the United States for
good.

As Macintyre relates, the rest of Harlan's life was no less
colorful. He later raised a regiment to fight on behalf of the Union
during the Civil War, though he nearly lost command due to a
mutiny and never actually saw combat because of illness. He also
hatched a scheme to import camels from Asia for use as
transportation in the United States. He died in 1871, however,
largely forgotten -- thanks to a British smear campaign -- in San
Francisco. His only possessions were a golden sword and a
piece of paper written in Persian, a contract making him king of
the Hazaras.
 
Macintyre's The Man Who Would Be King is a tour de force
effort, illuminating a man who would later inspire Rudyard
Kipling's short story of the same name. Superbly researched, it
serves as not only a marvelous example of Afghani/American
history brought to life, but it also performs an act of justice.
Josiah Harlan was an exceptional man whose story was
undeservedly forgotten. Macintyre's exciting narrative remedies
that sin with skill and passion and Harlan couldn't have hoped for
a better writer to tell his story.

Steven Martinovich is a freelance writer in Sudbury, Ontario,
Canada.

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