In December 24, 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan. They entered a country already engaged in a civil war. Figuratively, Afghans had been engaged in a war for nearly 100 years over their identity and direction. Dissension had finally led to political violence in 1978, as Afghans sought to impose upon one another their preferred model of statehood.

What happened in Afghanistan, argues Elisabeth Leake, was never determined solely by the rules of the Cold War, or the desires of policymakers in Moscow and Washington. It was the crucible of regional desires, and above all the crucible of Afghan desires, plans, and dreams. “This failure of Afghan politics,” she writes, “was not preordained and was a messy, protracted affair.”

Elisabeth Leake has been Associate Professor of International History at the University of Leeds, and as of August 1 is the Lee E. Dirks Chair in Diplomatic History at Tufts University. Previously the author of The Defiant Border: The Afghan-Pakistan Borderlands in the Era of Decolonization, 1936-65, her latest book is Afghan Crucible: The Soviet Invasion and the Making of Modern Afghanistan.