Photo Chronicles of Travels in Afghanistan Prior to Soviet Occupation

Photos: http://imgur.com/a/LdHsL#0

wow, these are awesome. great find. unrelated: It looks nothing like Rambo 3 or Spies Like Us

^lol

I thought Kite Runner did a pretty good job, was filmed relatively nearby in Western China.

These pictures are wonderful, a bit heartbreaking. This is a good black and white gallery.

Pictures of 1970s Iran are often quite surreal as well, though pre-Shah and post-Shah Iran society is a bit less stark in difference compared to Afghanistan's struggles - more of an underground culture still and while it's an authoritative government and all, it never had the chaos of perpetual civil war nor the widespread fundamentalist rule by the Taliban. I remember as a kid reading a mid-70s article in National Geographic about Iran and while I knew it was an ally (based on the outrageous amount of military equipment they bought, the Shah was arguably better armed than Israel was by the U.S. during that decade) but they were also culturally and economically very American. It was even typical to see "Made In Iran" as often as "Made in Taiwan."

http://www.pagef30.com/2009/04/iran-in-1970s-before-islamic-revolution.html

http://iransnews.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/iran-in-1960s-and-1970s/

^ignore the crappy text of the second one

excellent blog http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/posts/kabul_city_number_one