Beyond Swat ─ History, Society and Economy Along the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier

Written by anthropologists and historians with long-standing research experience in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as expertise in one or more of the region's languages, each chapter explores varying yet interconnected dimensions of the region's culture, society and politics over a broad span of history and their relevance to wider debates about the dynamics shaping this and other comparable 'frontier' spaces. The parallels the authors make cross temporal, as well as spatial boundaries and, in doing so, open up theoretically innovative lines of scholarly enquiry about the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier, the nature of Islamic militancy, its connections to ethnicity, class and transformations in the nature of state power, and, more generally, the relationship between anthropology and history.

Magnus Marsden is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London. He has spent 15 years conducting research in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Benjamin D. Hopkins is an Assistant Professor in History and International Affairs at the George Washington University, Washington DC and a Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.