M. Nazif Shahrani is Professor of Anthropology, Central Eurasian Studies, and Near Eastern Languages and Culture at Indiana University. He is author of The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan: Adaptation to Closed Frontiers and War and editor (with Robert L. Canfield) of Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan: Anthropological Perspectives.

Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Impact of Four Decades of War and Violence on Afghan Society and Political Culture / M. Nazif Shahrani

Part I: Technologies of Power-Competing Discourses on National Identity, Statehood and State Stability
1. Afghanistan: A Turbulent State in Transition / Amin Saikal
2. Afghanistan's "Traditional" Islam in Transition: Deep Roots of the Taliban Extremism / Bashir Ahmad Ansari
3. Language, Poetry and Identity in Afghanistan: Poetic Texts, Changing Contexts / Mohammad Omar Sharifi
4. Lineages of the Urban State: Locating Continuity and Change in Post-2001 Kabul / Khalid Homayun Nadiri and M. Farshid Alemi Hakimyar
5. Webs and Spiders: Four Decades of Violence, Intervention and Statehood in Afghanistan (1978-2016) / Timor Sharan
6. Merchant-Warlords: Changing Forms of Leadership in Afghanistan's Unstable Political Economy / Noah Coburn
7. Borders, Access to Strategic Resources, and Challenges to State Stability / Ahmad Shayeq Qassem
8. Brought to you by Foreigners, Warlords, and Local Activists: TV and the Afghan Culture Wars / Wazhmah Osman

Part II: Personal and Collective Identities, Gender Relations, and Trust Deficit
9. "The War Destroyed Our Society": Masculinity, Violence and Shifting Cultural Idioms among Afghan Pashtun / Andrea Chiovenda
10. Engendering the Taliban / Sonia Ahsan
11. Anticipating Discontinuous Change: Afghanistan in Retrospect and Prospect / Robert L. Canfield and Fahim Masoud

Part III: Adapting to New Political Ecology of Uncertainties at the Margins
12. Badakhshanis since the Saur Revolution: Struggle, Triumph, Hope, and Uncertainty / M. Nazif Shahrani
13. Hazara Civil Society Activists and Local, National, and International Political Institutions / Melissa Kerr Chiovenda
14. Adapting to Three Decades of Uncertainty: The Flexibility of Social Institutions among Baloch groups in Afghanistan / Just Boedeker
15. Party Institutionalization Meets Women's Empowerment? Acquiring Power and Influence in Afghanistan / Ann Larson

Part IV: Violence, Social Services Delivery, and Rising Trust Deficit
16. Childbirth and Social Change in Afghanistan / Kylea Laina Liese
17. Signatures of Distrust in Contemporary Afghanistan: More than a Decade of Development Effort for Vulnerable Groups; the Case of Disability / Parul Bakhshi and Jean-Francois Trani
Index