****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
My initial reaction upon discovering and reading this phenomenal work was: "You simply couldn't make up a story like this." While many of us well remember the John Huston movie based on the Rudyard Kipling short story of the same title -- starring Sean Connery and Peter O'Toole -- none could have imagined that the "real" Man Who Would Be King was actually an American from Chester, Pennsylvania. Larger than life, highly educated (especially in the Classics), and superbly literate, the ex-Quaker Josiah Harlan set out for Asia as a young man in the early 1820's after receiving a "Dear John" from his intended back home. One of his heroes was Alexander the Great, and Harlan's by no means modest sense of "mission" was continuing the great conquerer's dissemination Classical civilization. Another of commensurate importance was Thomas Jefferson, whose republican principles provided, in his view, a far higher standard of political and social organization than existing models of the time. Any contradictions or ironies that might have arisen in attempting to square Alexander and Jeffersonian republicanism were either missed or too trifling for concern. They were "his guys" and he set about his business of making himself a king. He was an ardent American patriot, a fiery opponent of slavery, and highly critical of British imperialism. Nonetheless, he injected himself into the "Great Game" between Britain and Russia in Central Asia, as well as into the internal rivalries among various rulers. Ultimately, he enjoyed a very short reign as King of Ghor before being forced out of the area and beginning a circuitous route back the United States and other exploits.Harlan published one book, A Memoir of India and Afghanistan (1842), that was so critical of the British enterprise in India and accompanied by such scathing reviews that no publisher would touch any of his other writing projects. Ironically, though the Memoir was publically condemned as heresy, it was eagerly read "under the table" by British officers and diplomats for its penetrating cultural and strategic insights into the region. It is available today (paperback and Kindle) and could prove an interesting read with regard to the current unpleasantness. Interestingly, if a few reviews of The Man Who Would Be King in the UK media are reflective, one might conclude that the British have yet to get over Josiah Harlan.Harlan largely faded from public view after his death in 1871, "living" principally in musty archives, diplomatic dispatches, and in the "legends" that such a personality inevitably generated. But the extraordinary efforts of Ben Macintyre, a noted British historian and writer, have superbly recovered Harlan's life and adventures from official repositories, as well as from a trove of personal papers unearthed in Chester, Pennsylvania. Harlan was the quintessential nineteenth century adventurer and explorer, of a piece with Lewis and Clark, Stanley, Livingstone, Richard Burton, and T.E. Lawrence later. The Man Who Would Be King cuts through the fog of legend and prejudice and restores Harlan both to public view and as one the great historical characters of his era. Moreover, Macintyre convincingly argues the influence of Harlan on Kipling's work, as the latter was close enough to events to have certainly heard of Harlan and his exploits. Is Daniel Dravot modeled on Harlan? Perhaps a discussion for another time.Like many of the great explorers and adventurers of history and legend, perhaps beginning with Odysseus, Harlan found it difficult to "go home again." While his later life, especially back in the United States, was interesting, suitably eccentric, and certainly "in character" in most respects, it in no way rose to the heights of the great Central Asian adventure, was disappointing in its achievements, and ultimately sad in that he died alone in San Francisco and soon after forgotten. But this outsized character is again available to us in Macintyre's seminal work. Read it! You won't be able to put it down.
