Rudyard Kipling. Lawrence James. William Dalrymple. George MacDonald Fraser. Shareen Blair Brysac. Philip Hensher. Paddy Docherty Goodreads Author. Thomas Barfield. Kiran Desai. Martin Ewans. Alexander Cooley. Dominic Green. Diana Preston. Dominic Lieven. Andrew Ward. Jonny Bealby. Martin McCauley. Phil Halton Goodreads Author. Aimee Liu Goodreads Author. David J. Hugh Wilford. John Keay. Return to Book Page. For nearly a century the two most powerful nations on earth - Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia - fought a secret war in the lonely passes and deserts of Central Asia.
Those engaged in this shadowy struggle called it 'The Great Game', a phrase immortalized in Kipling's Kim. When play first began the two rival empires lay nearly 2, miles apart. By the end, some Russian For nearly a century the two most powerful nations on earth - Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia - fought a secret war in the lonely passes and deserts of Central Asia. By the end, some Russian outposts were within 20 miles of India.
This book tells the story of the Great Game through the exploits of the young officers, both British and Russian, who risked their lives playing it. Disguised as holy men or native horsetraders, they mapped secret passes, gathered intelligence, and sought the allegiance of powerful khans. Some never returned. Get A Copy.
Paperback , pages. Published by Kodansha America, Inc. More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about The Great Game , please sign up. Sean Hennessey definitely a good book See 1 question about The Great Game….
Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 4. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Aug 28, Lori rated it liked it. It's a fabulous eastern action adventure full of the brave and resourceful British explorers and fighters confronting treacherous oriental despots as they maneuver to protect the jewel in the crown from another colonial power. Hopkirk covers a vast swathe of history and territory from Russia's eastward expansion to Alaska to the Russo—Japanese War.
He does warn you early on that his goal is to be impartial, but you can't tell a bit as you read. A compelling narrative with fantastic material, I d It's a fabulous eastern action adventure full of the brave and resourceful British explorers and fighters confronting treacherous oriental despots as they maneuver to protect the jewel in the crown from another colonial power. A compelling narrative with fantastic material, I don't know why easterns aren't more popular.
View all 16 comments. In Mongol horsemen swept westward through Russia, tying serfs to the Tartar yoke. The Golden Horde would exact tribute until Ivan the Terrible defeated the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan in the mid 's, opening the way for expansion east through Siberia.
Peter the Great turned his gaze south, through the Caucasus and Caspian towards Persia, yet was thwarted by Nader Shah in In the British began major territorial gains in India. The aspirations and apprehensions of these rival In Mongol horsemen swept westward through Russia, tying serfs to the Tartar yoke.
The aspirations and apprehensions of these rival European empires became the 'Great Game', played out in Central Asia during the 's. In the late 18th century, the British were concerned with Catherine the Great's expansion into Crimea, but distracted by the rise of Napoleon.
The Russian defeat of the French in helped to end one concern but created another. Threat of a Russian attack on India, via Turkey and Tehran, obsessed the British, and a cold war Russophobia took hold. Tsar Alexander I sent envoys to Khiva, present day Uzbekistan, to make allies and secure forward positions. British probed passes of Afghanistan seeking similar advantage in Bukhara, a neighboring kingdom on the Silk Road. A Russian treaty with the Ottoman Empire to control the Dardenelles Straight stoked paranoia in the 's.
British intrigue in Kabul precipitated the disastrous Anglo-Afghan War of the 's. The 's Crimean War strained Russian relations with Britain. Soon Samarkand fell. Spies like Frederick Burnaby rode to Khiva in the 's. Russians invaded Afghanistan in the 's, as did the British in early 's Tibet. Author Peter Hopkirk culls from many period accounts.
He tells the stories of adventurers, spies, secret agents and provocateurs. Geographical survey was a priority, as much was unknown about the region.
Henry Pottinger, in Muslim disquise, explored from Baluchistan to Isfahan in Alexander Burnes, who made an overland reconnaissance in , traced the Indus River, crossed the Khyber Pass to Kabul and became famous during his lifetime for the book 'Travels Into Bukhara'. Hopkirk was a late 20th century British writer, perhaps best known for this work. He began as a journalist on risky assignments in Africa and the Mideast. Widely traveled, he was a collector of Victorian books on the subjects he covered.
All of his works were about Central and South Asia, covering eclectic topics such as archaeology in Xinjiang, Bolshevik subversion in India and Kipling's sources of inspiration for Kim. The history is anglocentric, but takes a reasonable view towards other players.
The writing is unpretentious and clear, if somewhat oversimplified and given to cliche at times. Jun 26, 'Aussie Rick' rated it it was amazing Shelves: history. It is very rare nowadays to find a book that holds your attention throughout, without finding one boring section, this is one of those books.
In over pages paperback edition Peter Hopkirk tells the amazing stories of a number of early British and Russian officers and men involved in the great imperial struggle for supremacy in Central Asia. I found myself reading late into the morning, at times I couldn't put the book down. Most of the time I had heard of the places and people involved but a lot of this story was new to me.
The narrative read like a novel, gripping but informative, never boring and full of information, breathing life into history in a way that is hard to find now-a-days. This is a great book and I fully agree with the quote on the front cover of the book by Jan Morris "Peter Hopkirk is truly the laureate of the Great Game.
If you enjoy military history then this book has it, if you enjoy historical accounts of exploration then this book has it, if you just enjoy good history then this book has it all. The story of Britain and Russia carving out their Empires in India, Afghanistan and the surrounding areas is truly fascinating and I was amazed at the brave and resourceful men who carved their name in history during this period.
Most people have heard of the Khyber Pass and places like Chitral however I had never heard of the Pamirs and Karakorams mountain ranges or of the Kerman and Helmund deserts nor of some of the fierce and warlike tribes that lived in these areas.
After reading this book I yearn for more information about this region and I intend to buy the rest of Peter Hopkirk's books. View all 10 comments.
This is a complete enough narrative history of the struggle between Russia and Britain for control of Central Asia. So, if you want the bare, exciting outlines, read here, but don't expect analysis or deep thought on the issue. What we have here is a particularly Tory version of imperial history: all the British spies and agents are brave, ingenious, inventive and decent; all the Russians are mysterious, brutal, callous but always one step ahead of the good guys; the 'Asians' are, as always in t This is a complete enough narrative history of the struggle between Russia and Britain for control of Central Asia.
What we have here is a particularly Tory version of imperial history: all the British spies and agents are brave, ingenious, inventive and decent; all the Russians are mysterious, brutal, callous but always one step ahead of the good guys; the 'Asians' are, as always in these things, inscrutable, savage, unreliable and in need of civilization.
Every Russian advance was met with trepidation in Delhi and London, and Hopkirk too trembles with rage every time the damned Russians conquer another piece of Asia that rightfully belongs to Britain. I was once accused by a professor of writing too much in the style and attitude of my subjects, eighteenth century British administrators, occasionally using and reflecting favourably their bigoted and elitist views, without being aware of it.
Hopkirk, too, does this, but I doubt it was done innocently. A feature of Tory historiography of this sort is that the victories and defeats of empires a century and a half ago are keenly felt; that this book was written during the Cold War is painfully obvious from its attitude towards Russia and Russians. Though Hopkirk constantly bemoans the Russian advance, he doesn't have much to say about Britian's imperial expansion in India: the conquest of the Punjab merits a few sentences, and the occupation of Afghanistan, twice, is all heroic matyrdom and armchair generalship with a century of hindsight.
A quick read, but truly disappointing. View all 4 comments. An excellent book charting the rivalry between the British and the Russians in Central Asia, from Peter the Great until Russia's disastrous defeat by Japan in The epic tale is told through the adventures of the various soldiers, explorers and thrill-seekers who deployed to this vast, unknown and hazardous region on behalf of their respective governments.
Slowly the region was absorbed by the imperial powers, with many a disastrous mishap on the way. In particular, Afghanistan remained an i An excellent book charting the rivalry between the British and the Russians in Central Asia, from Peter the Great until Russia's disastrous defeat by Japan in In particular, Afghanistan remained an intractable buffer between the two imperial giants.
A must for anyone who, like me, wants a concise history of imperial interference in this area. View 1 comment. Nov 17, Erin Deathstar rated it it was amazing. Written in a style that is eminently appropriate for this story, The Great Game is a good introductory book for understanding the struggle between Britain and Russia over Central Asia in the 19th C.
If you love Kim by Rudyard Kipling, you will slobber over every page in this book. Took me a few decades, but it's the shit… Especially if you read it in a Comp Lit class analyzing the colonial discourse and the unforgivable cries of colonialism.
If that's you, give Kim Written in a style that is eminently appropriate for this story, The Great Game is a good introductory book for understanding the struggle between Britain and Russia over Central Asia in the 19th C. If that's you, give Kim a chance. Written by someone who grew up in Anglo-India, I think you'll find it extraordinarily insightful, despite the presence of the ponderous and stylistically stilted British Empire.
But back to the style of the Great Game, Peter Hopkirk is a very masterful writer for sure, but for this story, he manages to write the history in the totally anachronistic, rip-roarin' style that you find in colonial-adventure stories late-Victorian colonial-adventure. Basically, it's fun to read, in the way that Gunga Din is fun to watch.
Plus, it incorporates classic spy novel style as well. The history he's trying to relate is in no way compromised by this writing style. In fact, by using this style he takes an important tack that makes the book really sing.
By using that Victorian colonial-adventure style, he gets you in the heads of the Brits and Russinas who were, in that day, reading all of this rip and run super-adventure stuff. It's really hard to understand the mentality of British soldiers in the late 19th Century, or even in WWI!!!!
Think midsWB cartoons if you're an American of a certain age. They're so out of style now that it's hard for me to provide an example. Lawrence, he read them too. Anyway, I admire the ability of an author to pull the reader back in to the minds of their protagonists and their contemporaries.
Plus, this style makes the book read like a cheap titillating novel. This is one fast read considering the breadth of the work. A bit about the content of the book might be useful after all of my bombination on style: The Great Game relates the history of the struggle between the British Empire and the Russian Empire over the strongholds of Central Asia.
Basically this was an imperialist struggle. It wasn't a race for oil yet. Share Flipboard Email. By Kallie Szczepanski Kallie Szczepanski. Kallie Szczepanski is a history teacher specializing in Asian history and culture. She has taught at the high school and university levels in the U. Learn about our Editorial Process.
Featured Video. Cite this Article Format. Szczepanski, Kallie. What Was the Great Game? The Second Anglo-Afghan War Tibet and China: History of a Complex Relationship.
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