Scores of Americans engineers worked in southern Afghanistan from the late 1940s to the late 1970s to build two large dams and a canal network. Encouraged by a cadre of progressive Afghans who had attended American universities, the development project soon became a vast experiment in social engineering. New villages were constructed, with schools and health clinics. Nomads were resettled. Families from different tribes were made to live next to each other. A new, modern society was to rise from the desert.

Courtesy of the U.S. National Archives