1. Introduction / by Richard Tapper -- 2. State, tribe and empire in Afghan inter-polity relations / by Rob Hager -- 3. Khan and khel: dialectics of Pakhtun tribalism / by Jon W. Anderson -- 4. Tribes and states in the Khyber, 1838-42 / by Malcolm Yapp -- 5. Tribes and states in Waziristan / by Akbar S. Ahmed -- 6. Political organisation of Pashtun nomads and the state / by Bernt Glatzer -- 7. Abd Al-Rahman's north-west frontier: the Pashtun colonisation of Afghan Turkistan / by Nancy Tapper -- 8. Why tribes have chiefs: a case form Baluchistan / by Philip Carl Salzman -- 9. Iran and the Qashqai Tribal Confederacy / by Lois Beck -- 10. Tribes, confederation and the state: an historical overview of the Bakhtiari and Iran / by Gene Garthwaite -- 11. On the Bakhtiari: comments on 'tribes, confederation and the state' / by Jean-Pierre Digard -- 12. The enemy within: limitations on leadership in the Bakhtiari / by David Brooks -- 13. Kurdish tribes and the state of Iran: the case of Simko's Revolt / by Martin van Bruinessen -- 14. Nomads and commissars in the Mughan Steppe: the Shahsevan tribes in the great game / by Richard Tapper -- 15. The tribal society and its enemies / by Ernest Gellner -- 16. Tribe and state: some concluding remarks / by Andrew Strathern.
Summary
In 1978 and 1979 revolutions in Afghanistan and Iran marked a shift in the balance of power in South West Asia and the world. Then, as now, the world is once more aware that tribalism is no anachronism in a struggle for political and cultural self-determination. This books provides historical and anthropological perspectives necessary to the eventual understanding of the events surrounding the revolutions.
