Surferbeetle:

The really interesting Iraq histories (and probably for AfPak too) are the Cambridge Archives. They have all the British Colonial Reports.

Used them through UN in Baghdad, but they are so cool (for history geeks) that you can easily get lost in reading the 1880's era handwritten local consul's journal of trying to collect taxes from bandits up past Khanaqin, etc...

You can buy a whole set for like $3,000, but I suppose some university has a set somewhere in the US---or ought to get a copy since we are so closely "walking in their footsteps."

I'm more interested in tracking the post-Ottoman villayet systems (walayets in Afghanistan), and the associated districts and subdistricts. All the same basic structure. Must mean something.

Steve