Another Afghanistan: A Pre-Taliban Memoir by Julie Hill

An engaging and richly appreciative account of life in Afghanistan in Pre-Taliban times. Many books have been written in the past thirty-five years about Afghanistan's war and its geopolitics of terrorism, but none have provided an intimate view of the country and of Afghan society from the viewpoint of a largely neutral observer. Set during the golden years of Afghanistan --a rare period of peace in the mid1970-- it records memorable and sometime humorous diplomatic encounters between East and West. Its ground level perspective differs from the usual accounts of military men and politicians, offering an intimate view of Afghanistan and its people, including he foreign community. Fluent in Dari, the author was involved with the Diplomatic Wife's Organization and in conversations with ordinary citizens in the country's remote corners. Anything about Afghanistan can bear political ramifications, given the torturous history of that country, but these are foremost personal memoirs and impressions, more than any kind of deliberate or scholarly political history, hoping that the reader will begin to appreciate another Afghanistan behind today's raucous headlines. An Alexandrian Greek who now resides in Rancho Sta. Fe, California, Julie Hill has traveled and lived all over the world as the wife of an international diplomat and on her own as indefatigable adventurer even in her senior years. This is her fifth book, following A Promise to Keep: From Athens to Afghanistan (2003) ,The Silk Road Revisited: Markets, Merchants and Minarets (2006) Privileged Witness; Journeys of Rediscovery (2014) and In The Afternoon Sun: My Alexandria (2017). Speaking six languages, she worked as an international telecommunications executive before retiring in Southern California.