The Man Who Would Be King The First American in Afghanistan

The riveting story that inspired Kipling's classic tale and a John Huston movie The true story of Josiah Harlan, a Pennsylvania Quaker and the first American ever to enter Afghanistan, has never been told before. Soldier, spy, doctor, naturalist, traveler and writer, Josiah Harlan wanted to be a king, with all the imperialist hubris of his times. In an amazing twenty-year journey around Central Asia, he was variously employed as surgeon to the Maharaja of Punjab, revolutionary agent for the exiled Afghan King, and then commander-in-chief of the Afghan armies. In 1838, he set off in the footsteps of Alexander the Great across the Hindu Kush and forged his own kingdom, only to be ejected from Afghanistan a few months later by the invading British. Using a trove of newly-discovered documents, Harlan's own unpublished journals, and with a revised Preface detailing the unexpected discovery of Harlan's descendents, Ben Macintyre tells the astonishing tale of the man who would be the first and last American king. Ben Macintyreis the author of three previous books:Forgotten Fatherland,The Napoleon of Crime, andThe Englishman's Daughter. He is a columnist forThe Times(London), where he edits the Weekend Review section. He was formerly the paper's bureau chief in New York, Paris, and Washington. He lives in London with his family. In the winter of 1838, an adventurer, surrounded by native troops and mounted on an elephant, raised the American flag on the summit of the Hindu Kush in the mountainous wilds of Afghanistan. He declared himself Prince of Ghor, Paramount Chief of the Hazarajat, and the spiritual and military heir to Alexander the Great. His name was Josiah Harlan. A Pennsylvania Quaker, Harlan was the first American ever to enter Afghanistan. InThe Man Who Would Be Kingwe have the extraordinary true story of the man who inspired Kipling's classic tale. A soldier, spy, doctor, naturalist, traveler, and writer, Harlan was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, in 1799. At the age of twenty-two, after a failed love affair, he set off on what was to become an amazing twenty-year journey through Central Asia. Among his many exploits, he was variously employed as surgeon to the Maharaja of Punjab, revolutionary agent for the exiled Afghan King, and commander in chief of the Afghan armies. He modeled himself after Alexander the Great and followed in his footsteps across the Hindu Kush, where he successfully forged his own kingdomonly to be ejected from Afghanistan a few months later by the invading British. Harlan retired to the United States, where he raised his own regiment during the Civil War and engaged in a variety of harebrained schemes, including the introduction of the camel to the American West as a viable means of locomotion, and the cultivation of exotic Afghan grapes. Based on the remarkable discovery of Josiah Harlan's own unpublished journals,The Man Who Would Be Kingtellsfor the first timethe fascinating story of a political adventurer who personified the imperialistic impulse some sixty years before the Spanish-American War. Colorful, exotic, and highly entertaining, this book is also a cautionary tale that echoes down the centuries as the United States finds itself entangled, once again, with Afghanistan. "One of the most remarkable discoveries in the history of biography . . . It's a 'ripping yearn,' as we used to say, and Macintyre is an excellent narrator, describing with skill a spirited and fast-moving life."David Gilmour,The New York Review of Books "The book is a Kiplingesque fantasy guaranteed to get even the dourest reader's blood racing."Leela Jacinto,The Nation "Here is a writer

Ben Macintyre is the author of three books, most recently The Englishman's Daughter (FSG, 2002). A senior writer and columnist for The Times of London, he was the newspaper's correspondent in New York, Paris, and Washington D.C. He now lives in London.