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In The Rise of the Indo-Afghan Empire, Jos Gommans skilfully weaves together the histories of the environment, horse trade, military service and migration to explain the final – but no less remarkable – instance of Afghan state-formation on the Indian subcontinent. The eighteenth century witnessed the emergence of two types of Indo-Afghan polities. The first was the rise of the Durrani Empire, founded by Ahmad Shah in 1747, which expanded into north India and Iran. The second were those states created in the mid-eighteenth century by free Afghan horse dealers and mercenaries, such as Rohilkhand and Farrukhabad. Their establishment was the culmination of long processes of migration and the accumulation of offices in return for loyal imperial service. Their success was bolstered by their connection with the Durrani Empire and the trade in warhorses and goods across the Indo-Afghan frontier. Gommans’ now classic study with a new introduction by Jagjeet Lally bridges the worlds of South and Central Asia, nomadic and sedentary society, to bring to life Afghans’ contributions to the cultural dynamism and economic buoyancy now firmly associated with pre-colonial South Asia.