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Asia Highway is Luke Powells photographic examination of Iran and particularly Pakistan, acknowledging the destruction these cultures have undergone while emphasizing the beautiful and good that Powell discovered on his travels. The photos in the first chapter were taken in Iran in 1974 and include the historical bazaar of Tabriz (a crucial center on the Silk Road and since 2010 a UNESCO World Heritage Site), while the succeeding chapters depict northern Pakistan. The story of the books origins orbits around various political events: Powell photographed a series on Pakistans Swat district after he had left Afghanistan just ahead of the Taraki coup in 1978; and in 2000 the Taliban invited him to return while restricting his subsequent movements, prompting Powell to travel to Pakistan and work in Chitral and Gilgit. Other chapters explore Peshawar and the Kalash people in Chitral.

It is important to understand that people in Central and South Asia have been literate for several millennia longer than in northern Europe and North America. The simplicity of their lives and their focus on families and childrenthese are not remnants of a primitive past but survival-enhancing choices made by sophisticated people who have seen civilizations rise and fall many many times before. A relatively large percentage of the population lives in family-oriented, agrarian and pastoral communities in which they can continue to thrive after usury bubbles, trade routes and empires collapse, as they always do. Luke Powell