Life Inside Little America in Afghanistan

Photos from a time when tiki bars and afternoons at the pool dominated the lives of Americans in Afghanistan.

BY RAJIV CHANDRASEKARAN | JUNE 26, 2012

In 1946, Afghanistan's king, Zahir Shah, hired the American engineering firm that built the Hoover Dam and the San Francisco Bay Bridge to construct a network of irrigation canals in the southern part of his country. He believed that harnessing the waters of the Hindu Kush would yield prosperity, transforming an arid valley into a fertile and thriving oasis.

Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives

 

Rajiv Chandrasekaran is a senior correspondent and associate editor at the Washington Post and author of Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan. For more information about the book, go to www.rajivc.com