Damming Afghanistan: Modernization in a Buffer State, by Nick Cullather

Teaching the Article
Exercise 1: Seeing Modernity

Worksheet:

Description:

Most of us could name the contents of a modern kitchen, but what does a modern landscape look like? Before assigning the article, show these seven images to the class and ask students to rank them from the least modern (or least developed) to the most. The images are mixed, from various continents and time periods, so that time and place can be disregarded.

Urge them to offer reasons for their choices. Are modern settings more or less likely to contain people? What alterations mark a landscape as developed? Which environments are more thoroughly known and controlled? Note differences such as the functional separation between economic activities, between "social" and "natural" uses; the presence of permanent or impermanent structures; signs of abundance or scarcity; and the organization of the landscape into lines, grids, and networks. How does the image itself (age, angle, color or black-and-white) influence your idea of how "developed" its contents are?

Highlight differences of perspective.In which environment would it be easier or more pleasant to own a house? Have a picnic? Make a living? Deliver mail? Sell a product? Enforce the law? Believe in God? Discuss how different ways of valuing a landscape can lead to different views on how to "improve" it. How might such disagreements lead to conflict on the local, national, or even international levels, and what forms could dissent take?

Frame issues.Invite students to suggest ways the issues discussed above in the abstract might play out in the specific circumstances of Afghanistan, the United States, and the Cold War. How might international tensions heighten the preference for transparent, legible landscapes? How would development redistribute power among national and local elites, or between governmental and religious authorities? Whom is the landscape (and the economy) for? Producers? Consumers? The government?

Images used in this exercise:

Image A: Field of opium poppies in Afghanistan
Photography by Douglas R. Powell; courtesy Douglas R. Powell, The Geo-Images Project, University of California, Berkeley.
Source: http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/GeoImages/Powell/Afghan/078.html

Image B: Tibetan Nomad Tents
Photograph by Martin Wierzbicki; courtesy Martin Wierzbicki, http://www.photosbymartin.com.

Image C: Shama Shah's Chandigarh central business district in India
Courtesy Artifice Images.
Source: http://www.ArchitectureWeek.com/2001/0822/culture_1-2.html

Image D: Rice paddy in Thailand
Courtesy Jan Van Assche, http://start.at/travelspot.

Image E: Countryside in Provence, France
Courtesy Gene Buckley.
Source: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/%7Egene/images/europe/paysage.jpg

Image F: A street in Chandigarh, India
Photograph by Sachin Bandukwala. Courtesy Artifice Images.
Source: http://www.ArchitectureWeek.com/cgi-bin/awimage?dir=2001/0822&article=culture_1-2.html&image=11515_image_10.jpg

Image G: South Bend, Indiana, United States
Courtesy Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, G4094.S6A3 1890 .P3 Oversize.