Return of a king - William Dalrymple

In the spring of 1839, the British invaded Afghanistan for the first
time. Led by lancers in scarlet cloaks and plumed shakos, nearly 20,000
British and East India Company troops poured through the high mountain
passes and re-established on the throne Shah Shuja ul-Mulk.On
the way in, the British faced little resistance. But after two years of
occupation, the Afghan people rose in answer to the call for jihad and
the country exploded into violent rebellion. The First Anglo-Afghan War
ended in Britain's greatest military humiliation of the nineteenth
century: an entire army of the then most powerful nation in the world
ambushed in retreat and utterly routed by poorly equipped tribesmen.Return of a King is
the definitive analysis of the First Afghan War, told through the lives
of unforgettable characters on all sides and using for the first time
contemporary Afghan accounts of the conflict. Prize-winning and
bestselling historian William Dalrymple's masterful retelling of
Britain's greatest imperial disaster is a powerful and important parable
of colonial ambition and cultural collision, folly and hubris, for our
times.