Afghanistan's Golden Age

It is a fond myth of progressives that despite various setbacks, things in general have been continually improving and "there has never been a better time to be alive than now" (an actual quotation from British leftist Polly Toynbee of The Guardian). One of the countries in which this is most obviously untrue is Afghanistan. Contrary to the widely believed cliché that Afghanistan has always been inherently "ungovernable," Afghanistan was actually quite governable and a relatively decent place to live under the monarchy from the 1930s through the 1970s, as this New York Times article points out.

(Link suggested by my brother, who will be moving there next year to teach violin and viola in Kabul.)