(1999) described mid-19th century Afghanistan as "less a nation than a congerie of tribes and clans rooted in city-states with fluid boundaries and loyalties, whose rulers were . . . at each others' throats" (p. 65). With the departure of the British Raj in 1948, a power vacuum developed which resulted in a gradual increase in Soviet influence. Although Afghanistan's 20th century kings took preliminary steps to modernize the nation's economy and to temper somewhat the excesses of authoritarian rule, King Muhammad Zabir Shah (1933-1973) was forced to abdicate by a modernizing Prime Minister Mohammad Daoud whose left-wing republic (1973-1978) was ousted by a communist-army led coup in 1978. The Soviets seized power in Kabul in December 1979 when strong man Hafizullah Amin, who had Daoud's successor Nur Taraki killed, failed (in the view of the Kremlin) to hue sufficiently to the communist party line. Strong resistance to Daoud-Taraki-Amin rule developed in the late 1970s, primarily as a "traditionalist uprising, a violent repudiation of .
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