instead of traditional afghan homes, big tall walls around, they built suburban style american homes, ramblers, white stucco walls, manicured front lawns. they had the country's first and only coed high school. they built a swimming pool where boys and girls could swing together, ma and a clubhouse with her nightly card games, weekly squared dances and a bartender the afghans look at the town, which the american engineers thought would serve as a model for what the afghans might aspire to build for themselves. of course, the afghans said that's fine for you, americans, we don't really want to live that way. the afghans came up with a name for it and called it little america. that's what got the title of the book because that brand development experiment, which really fail to achieve its goals back in the '50s and '60s and 70s. in many ways, was -- for the grand nationbuilding effort our country had engage country had engaging over there over the past decade. so i start my book with the story of americans in afghanistan, six decades ago to set the stage for discussion of the troops urge. >> the