The history of Afghanistan before 1978

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Amirs of al-Yun
Dialog on the H-Mideast-Medieval list, May 1999. A short-lived dynasty in what is now Afghanistan under the Ghaznavids.
The king of Greater Afghanistan; A German dispatch from 1940 shows Zahir Shah's true colours
By Tariq Ali, The Guardian (London), 30 November 2001. What is interesting in the German dispatch is not so much the evidence of the Afghan king's sympathy for the Nazi regime, but his desire for a Greater Afghanistan via the incorporation of Pakistan's North West Frontier province and its capital Peshawar. The king never accepted the Durand Line dividing Afghanistan and Pakistan, and he might encourage Pashtun nationalism.
The Afghan tragedy
By H.N. Akhtar, DAWN, 22 February 2001, 27 Ziqa'ad 1421. How Afghanistan was the proxy and sometimes the actual battleground of the Russian and British Empires. Focus of article is circumstances leading to Soviet intervention in the 70's and eventual degeneration to warlordism.
Afghanistan & the great game
By Mumia Abu-Jamal, 18 December 2001. Afghanistan&s role in what is called the Great Game, or imperial conflicts between the British and the Russians dating from the early nineteenth century. By the 1980s, the game was again afoot as the U.S. sent in clandestine arms and support to elicit a Soviet military response, and to spring the Afghan trap. Afghanistan became the Soviets' Vietnam as it lost tens of thousands in the war, and led to the eventual break-up of the USSR.