MenuInventory of the Louis Dupree Papers, 1943 - 1989, undated
Abstract
Louis Dupree was a scholar, educator, and consultant on the refugees, politics, and archaeology of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He served as a Senior Research Associate for the Program in Islamic and Arabian Development Studies at Duke University during the late 1980s. The Louis Dupree Papers contain correspondence, notes, clippings, conference programs, drafts, manuscripts, speeches, newsletters, interview transcripts, research materials, teaching materials, a scrapbook, photographs, grant applications, memorabilia, student papers, a dissertation, and other materials related to the personal life and professional career of archaeologist, activist, and scholar Louis Dupree. Major subjects include Louis Dupree, Nancy Hatch Dupree, the Duke University Program in Islamic and Arabian Development Studies, Ralph Braibanti, Afghanistan, Afghan refugees, Afghanistan-Pakistan relations, Pakistan, the United States Army 11th Airborne, the United States Army 187th Airborne, and the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Descriptive Summary
- Title
- Louis Dupree Papers, 1943 - 1989, undated.
- Creator
- Dupree, Louis, 1925-
- Extent
- 4.5 Linear Feet, , 3000 Items
- Repository
- University Archives, Duke University
- Location
- For current information on the location of these materials, please consult University Archives, Duke University.
- Language
- English.
Collection Overview
The Louis Dupree papers contain correspondence, notes, clippings, conference programs, drafts, manuscripts, speeches, newsletters, interview transcripts, research materials, teaching materials, a scrapbook, photographs, grant applications, memorabilia, student papers, a dissertation, and other materials related to the personal life and professional career of archaeologist, activist, and scholar Louis Dupree.
Major subjects include Louis Dupree, Nancy Hatch Dupree, the Duke University Program in Islamic and Arabian Development Studies, Ralph Braibanti, Afghanistan, Afghan refugees, Afghanistan-Pakistan relations, Pakistan, the United States Army 11th Airborne, the United States Army 187th Airborne, and the United States Military Academy at West Point. Materials range in date from 1943 to 1989. The bulk of the material is from 1980 to 1989, as Dupree had destroyed much of his correspondence and papers, because, according to Nancy Hatch Dupree, he thought they were nobody's business.
Administrative Information
Collections are on the move for the renovation of the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Contact Rubenstein Library staff before visiting. Read More »
Access Restrictions
Patrons must sign the Acknowledgement of Legal Responsibility and Privacy Rights form before using this collection.
The series entitled Correspondence with Afghan and Pakistani refugees and students is restricted. This series contains sensitive information. Patrons must sign a waiver concerning privacy rights.
In off-site storage; 24 hours advance notice is required for use.
Use Restrictions
Copyright for Official University records is held by Duke University; all other copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.
Contents of the Collection
Browse List of Series
Collapse All
Expand AllPrimarily professional correspondence from the last decade of Dupree's life. Dupree often developed friendships with his professional associates, so much of the professional correspondence contains personal information and vice versa. Dupree also filed notes, clippings, and other materials related to the correspondent in the same folder as the correspondence.
Arranged alphabetically by correspondent except for two folders, one of miscellaneous correspondence and one of various letters of reference for Dupree, filed at the end of the series.
Conference programs and schedules, correspondence relating to Dupree's attendance at various conferences and seminars, draft and published versions of presentations given at conferences, and Dupree's working notes for presentations.
Arranged alphabetically.
Primarily correspondence, clippings, notes, memos, minutes, newsletters, and other materials related to organizations and committees to which Dupree belonged or in which he had an interest. Includes some writings by Dupree and his testimony before the Congressional Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Congressional Task Force on Afghanistan. Also includes notes by Dupree concerning his possible appointment as the US ambassador to Bangladesh.
Arranged alphabetically.
Notes, drafts, and typescripts of articles and books written by Dupree, plus other research materials.
Arranged chronologically
Transcripts of interviews with Afghans, used as research material in Dupree's book Afghanistan.
Correspondence, notes about typos and other corrections and revisions, research notes, contracts, clippings, and other materials related to the publication of Afghanistan.
Arranged alphabetically
Typescripts of Review: Rambo III by Dupree and The Afghan Kirghiz in Turkey by Nancy Hatch Dupree.
Translations of captions to calendar illustrations by Dupree.
Letter regarding Dupree's entry for Babrak Karmal in the 1987 Encyclopedia of World Biography, plus a copy of the article.
Typescript regarding a bronze sarcophagus and related items found in Kandahar.
Handwritten notes for a talk entitled What is Anthropology?
Xerox of article (in Norwegian) regarding Dupree and Nancy Hatch Dupree.
Typescript and handwritten draft of short article by Dupree regarding Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Warning: Graphic Material
Black and white photographs. Note by Nancy Hatch Dupree: Police photos of P. M. Maiwandwal's 'suicide by hanging' on 20 October 1973. L. D. persuaded the government not to release them as 'proof' of suicide, bec. he found them unconvincing. To my knowledge they were never published or released.
Correspondence regarding Dupree's role as guest editor of the journal.
Typed transcript of an interview with an Indian villager, plus appendices and handwritten notes.
Handwritten draft by Dupree for a Voice of America program marking the anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Arranged chronologically
Note by Nancy Hatch Dupree: Transcript of tapes made by Louis Dupree in Peshawar immediately following his imprisonment in Kabul, December 1978.
Arranged alphabetically
Correspondence, application, proposal, notes, and other materials related to the Duprees' study of Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
Correspondence, proposal, and other materials related to Dupree's unfinished book, The First Russo-Afghan War (1979-???): Afghan Cultural Responses to the Soviet Occupation.
Grant proposal to the Ford Foundation for funding for the book The Modernization of Inner Asia. Annotations by Dupree.
Correspondence, proposal, tentative outline of book, notes, and other materials related to the Duprees' study of Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
Correspondence, application, and other materials related to the Duprees' study of Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
Materials related to Dupree serving as an advisor and reviewer on journal articles, books, and a master's thesis. Includes correspondence, notes, and abstracts and drafts of articles and books under consideration.
Arranged alphabetically
Correspondence, comments by Dupree on a manuscript by Barnett Rubin entitled The Struggle for the Afghan State: Communist Coup d'Etat and Islamic Revolution. Correspondence and comments by Dupree on a manuscript by Michael Karasz entitled Strewn Along Shores.
Two bound volumes of Dupree's Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University Dept. of Anthropology: Shamshir Ghar: Historic Cave Site in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, 1954
Correspondence, syllabi, reading lists, notes, student papers, and other materials related to Dupree's teaching career.
Arranged alphabetically
Arranged alphabetically
Correspondence, notes, clippings, maps, and other materials related to Dupree's service in the 11th Airborne Division.
Correspondence, clippings, and other materials related to Dupree's service in the 187th Airborne Division.
Correspondence, copies of Dupree's discharge records, and other materials related to Dupree's U. S. Army service.
Scrapbook kept by Dupree during his 1943-1944 armed forces service. Includes journal entries, verse, clippings, photographs, and other memorabilia.
Arranged alphabetically
Correspondence regarding The Dupree Family Album and a copy of The Name and Family of Dupre(e) from the Roots Research Bureau.
Clipping about the Duprees from the Greenville Daily Reflector, Greenville High School reunion program, letters, and other personal materials.
Historical Note
Louis Dupree was born in Greenville, North Carolina in 1925. He attended Greenville High School until about 1943, enlisting in the armed forces before earning his diploma. He served in World War II, first as a merchant seaman, then as an officer in the 11th Airborne Division in the Philippines campaign and occupation of Japan. Dupree received the Mariner's Medal, Merchant Marine Combat Bar, Combat Infantry Badge, Purple Heart, and Bronze Star.
During 1947 to 1955, Dupree earned his bachelor's, master's, and doctorate degrees in Anthropology from Harvard. He began research in Central and South Asia in 1949. In the United States, Dupree taught and conducted research at Air University, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, from 1953 to 1957. In 1957, he accepted a teaching appointment in the Anthropology Department at Pennsylvania State University. Dupree taught as a Visiting Professor at Kabul University (Afghanistan), Princeton University, and the United States Military Academy at West Point.
From 1959 to 1983, Dupree was a representative of the American Universities Field Staff (AUFS) in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He spent two years researching and writing under the AUFS program, returning to the United States every third year to lecture at the twelve universities sponsoring AUFS. Dupree was also director of several archaeological surveys and excavations in Afghanistan from 1959 to1983, sponsored by American institutions such as the American Museum of Natural History, the National Science Foundation, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. His excavation on upper Paleolithic sites at Aq Kupruk in northern Afghanistan won international acclaim.
In 1966, Dupree married Nancy Hatch in Afghanistan, whom he had met while she was writing a guidebook of the Bamiyan area of Afghanistan. The Duprees continued to intermittently live and work in Afghanistan.
While on AUFS business in Kabul, Afghanistan just prior to the 1978 Soviet Invasion, Dupree was imprisoned by Afghans and their Soviet advisors. He was interrogated at length about United States intelligence operations and his interactions with Afghans. He was ultimately released through the intervention of Afghan friends. The account of his imprisonment appears as a six-part series, Red Flag over the Hindu Kush in American University Field Staff Reports (1980).
As other nations became interested in the plight of Afghanistan, the Duprees were called upon to advise the parliaments or foreign ministries of Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, England, Austria, Pakistan, and to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees. Dupree frequently corresponded with Pakistan's president, General Mohammed Zia Ul-Haq. In the United States, Dupree acted as a consultant to the State Department, United States Agency for International Development (U.S. AID), the Peace Corps, Esso Pakistan Fertilizer Company, United Nations Development Programs, UNESCO, Helsinki Watch, Amnesty International, the World Bank, and other organizations.
In 1985, after teaching for one year at West Point Military Academy and another year at Princeton University, he joined the Program in Islamic and Arabian Development Studies at Duke University as a Senior Research Associate. He held concurrent appointments at Duke University as Visiting Professor of Anthropology, Political Science, and Public Policy Studies. He also taught at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the departments of Anthropology and Political Science.
The Islamic and Arabian Development Studies Program operated at Duke from 1977 to 1989 under the direction of Professor Ralph Braibanti. It funded the acquisition of library materials that supported its mission, facilitating the accession to the Duke libraries of two major Middle Eastern collections: the Joseph J. Malone Collection on Arabian Affairs and the Louis and Nancy Hatch Dupree Collection on Islamic Inner Asia. The Dupree Collection consists of about 5,000 items, 200 of which are located in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Reflecting the careers and interests of their donors, the materials in the collection focus on the anthropology, art, archaeology, folklore, linguistics, and history of Afghanistan. There are also significant holdings on Islam, the Central Asian Republics, and South Asia.
A social activist, Dupree was Honorary Director and one of the founders of the Afghan Relief Committee. The beneficiaries of the Afghan Relief Committee were primarily Doctors Without Borders, Freedom Medical of Washington, D.C., Aide Medicale International, and Sainte Sud of Marseilles. Dupree was involved with the Afghanistan Action Committee at Duke University and corresponded with members of many other humanitarian assistance organizations.
Dupree and Nancy Hatch Dupree spent years researching and living in Afghanistan and planned to retire there. Together they researched and planned to write a book on Afghan refugees in Pakistan. By 1987, their collaborative work earned them a joint award, the International Rescue Committee's Bronze Medal for Service to Afghanistan Refugees. In 1988, the Duprees returned to Pakistan as Joint Fulbright Senior Scholars. Louis Dupree authored many books and over 200 articles. His articles appeared in various publications such as American Anthropologist, the Middle East Journal, the Economist, the New York Times, the Nation, Evergreen Review, and the Khyber Mail.
Some of the books authored by Dupree include: Afghanistan (1973), Physical Anthropology of Afghanistan (1970), Changing Patterns of Social Structure in Afghanistan (1970), Deh Morasi Ghundai: a Chalcolithic Site in South-Central Afghanistan (1963), and The Desert Survival Field Test (1956).
Louis Dupree died in 1989 at the age of 63. Nancy Hatch Dupree continued her work with Afghan refugees.
Subject Headings
- Afghanistan--History--20th century.
- Afghanistan--History--Soviet occupation, 1979-1989.
- Afghanistan--Relations--Foreign.
- Afghanistan--Social life and customs--20th century.
- Anthropology--Study and teaching (Higher)
- Archaeology--Field work.
- Braibanti, Ralph J. D.
- Duke University--Faculty.
- Duke University. Islamic and Arabian Development Studies.
- Dupree, Louis, 1925-
- Dupree, Nancy Hatch.
- Humanitarian assistance, American--Afghanistan.
- Pakistan--History--20th century.
- Pakistan--Relations--Foreign countries.
- Pakistan--Social conditions--20th century.
- Refugees--Afghanistan.
- United States. Army. Airborne Division, 11th.
- United States. Army. Airborne Infantry, 187th.
- United States Military Academy--Faculty.
- Scrapbooks.
Related Material
- Biographical Reference Collection: Louis Dupree (Duke University Archives)
- News Service Biographical Files: Louis Dupree (Duke University Archives)
- Maheshwary, Avinash C. A Catalog of the Louis and Nancy H. Dupree Collection: Afghanistan, Anthropology, Archaeology, Islamic Central Asia, Ethnology, Military History, South Asia and Related Subjects. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University, 1994 (Duke University Libraries)
- Louis Dupree: Curriculum Vitae, 1925-1989. Peshawar, Pakistan: University of Peshawar, 1992 (Duke University Libraries)
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Louis Dupree Papers, University Archives, Duke University.
Provenance
The Louis Dupree Papers was received by the University Archives as a gift in 1989.
Processing Information
Processed by Emily J. Glenn, Dean Jeffrey
Completed July 2005
Encoded by Dean Jeffrey, July 2005
This finding aid is NCEAD compliant.