{"product_id":"the-finest-hotel-in-kabul-a-people-s-history-of-afghanistan","title":"The Finest Hotel in Kabul : A People’s History of Afghanistan","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eA sweeping and immersive history of modern Afghanistan from the one of the world’s leading war correspondents.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIn 1969, the luxury Hotel Inter-Continental Kabul opened its doors: a glistening white box, high on a hill, that reflected Afghanistan’s hopes of becoming a modern country, connected to the world. Lyse Doucet – now the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, then a young reporter on her inaugural trip to Afghanistan – first checked into the Inter-Continental in 1988.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn the decades since, she has witnessed a Soviet evacuation, a devastating civil war, the US invasion, and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban, all from within its increasingly battered walls. The Inter-Con has never closed its doors. Now, she weaves together the experiences of the Afghans who have kept the hotel running to craft a richly immersive history of their country.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIt is the story of Hazrat, the septuagenarian housekeeper who still holds fast to his Inter-Continental training from the hotel’s 1970s glory days – an era of haute cuisine and high fashion, when Afghanistan was a kingdom and Kabul was the ‘Paris of Central Asia’. Of Abida, who became the first female chef after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. And of Malalai and Sadeq, the twenty-somethings who seized every opportunity offered by two decades of fragile democracy – only to see the Taliban come roaring back in 2021.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThrough these intimate portraits of Kabul life, the story of a hotel becomes the story of a people.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Hutchinson Heinemann","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56064119832950,"sku":"9781529151022","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0525\/9857\/1159\/files\/812IfFLwMjL._SL1500.jpg?v=1754651844","url":"https:\/\/bookbag.mom\/products\/the-finest-hotel-in-kabul-a-people-s-history-of-afghanistan","provider":"Bookbag Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}