Inflection Points in History
Questions such as “How did Afghanistan go from being a center of the ancient Silk Road in central Asia to the chaotic country it is today?”
The Silk Road started a very long time ago, starting around 200 BCE. You can see a map here https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:SeidenstrasseGMT.JPG The Silk Road enters Afghanistan roughly south of Kokand, which is fairly easy to see on the map.The Silk Road functioned until the mid 1400s.So to answer this sample question, the reader would need to learn about life in Afghanistan in the 1400s, and then follow history forward and look at life in Afghanistan when it was first unified, and then, as events transpired, what were the high points and low points from then on.
An abbreviated way of answering this question would be to follow the history of Afghanistan from the first king, the revolution, the advance of Marxism, the establishment of a Marxist regime, the dissatisfaction of the USSR with the way things were going, the invasion, the Mujahidins, the Taliban, the US invasion, and so forth.
To do this job, it would be helpful to have the aid of some web sites that at least sketch this long history.