ABSTRACT
It is very common to explore the political and religious history of the world with big names, well-known places and world superpowers. This book of course did not ignore any of these, but a major, and I may claim original, contribution of this work has been the illustration of world history and the struggle of the various political and religious powers in a very small, and remote mountainous place, Badakhshan, which became a hot spot for many superpowers, including Britain, Russia and China. Equally the book has shown the response and the resiliency of the people, and particularly the leaders, of this region to all these powers on the one hand, and the local forms of leadership and authority in Badakhshan on the other.
