The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia

Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: This is Peter Hopkirk's classic account of the nineteenth century cold war struggle between the British Empire and Imperial Russia. Hopkirk is a devil with the pen and knows how to spin a great story. The end result is a gripping tale, the kind of wild adventure story my grandfather used to tell me when I was a child. Five stars simply isn't enough. This is terrific stuff.

For those who don't know, this is the story of how Central Asia became part of the Russian, and then Soviet Empire. Russian expansion to the southeast caused consternation in British India where military planners became convinced the Russians were out to invade the 'Jewel of the Crown'. There followed a century's worth of cold war espionage between the empires that involved all maner of characters and military encounters.

There are invasions and wars in Afghanistan, where the Brits were turfed out twice, Russian conquests of the Emirates of Khiva & Bokhara and legions of adventurers heading off into the wild blue yonder on missions to map the region and foil the enemy. All their stories are here. You'll have to pinch yourself to believe some of them. What an adventure story this is.

Five Stars.

Rating:
Summary: History as it should be written
Review: "The Great Game" is a well-written and gripping account of the British and Russian machinations in central Asia during the 19th century that reads more like a novel than a dry history book. What's even better is that the story is quite relevant to the geopolitical realities of our century.

Although a few forays are taken into Turkey, the Caucasus and the Far East, most the action takes place in central Asia (including the Pamirs and western China), and much of that was in the buffer region that is now Afghanistan. After having spent centuries subjugated by Mongol invaders, an expansionist imperial Russia began trying to secure its borders by extending its sphere of influence into central Asia. Meanwhile the British had colonized India and were concerned about protecting her northern borders. 'The Great Game' was an expression coined by an early participant and later immortalized by Rudyard Kipling to describe the often-shadowy means these two great powers used to pursue these goals.

At the beginning of the 19th century few westerners had gone into central Asia and almost none had seen the great cities of the area. Into this void came a series of British and Russian adventurers seeking information about the terrain, population, and cities, and who in many cases sought to create alliances with the local rulers that could be used to further Britain's and Russia's imperial ambitions and cement their desired security zones.

The book is written around the stories of these adventurers, many of whom, but by no means all, were soldiers. The early explorers had the advantage of entering a region where no westerners had been before and could often pass themselves off as Indian traders. Eventually they were able to penetrate far enough into central Asia to meet local rulers who were so isolated that they understood 'Britain' and 'Russia' to be simply powerful tribes in their general vicinity. The British and Russian envoys would try to outdo each other in attempting to indicate the sizes of their respective countries (which, in the case of the UK, would include its vast colonial holdings for maximum impact).

Much of the book is devoted to the first and second Afghan wars in which the British tried to install their monarch of choice and were eventually routed as a result of both their incompetence and the fierce Afghan fighters. Some of the accounts of Afghanistan today could almost have been taken directly from 'The Great Game'. Life for many in the region appears to have changed very little in the intervening years.

Hopkirk has written this book from an unabashedly pro-western and pro-British perspective, but it is a fascinating story and one that still has great pertinence to world affairs today. I can highly recommend it to anybody who would like a better understanding of both the history and current reality of central Asia.

Rating:
Summary: Timely reading...
Review: While ... like Nostradamus flies off the shelves, read for yourself the intricate backstory to today's headlines. This is the tale of 2 empires and their "Great Game" to control Central Asia. Afghanistan and what is now Pakistan are the playing fields for this struggle. (sound familiar?) Page-turning, cloak-and-dagger stuff that seems too almost elegant and balanced to qualify as non-fiction; Hopkirk has mastered the "tale" of history. The religious, cultural, economic, geographic, and military issues are all here from the pages of the 19c directly to "Nightline". The other Hopkirk books, especially Like Hidden Fire, are also excellent reading for this topic.

Rating:
Summary: The Great Game The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia
Review: This has got to be the most captivating history book ever written. I couldnt put it down. My husband couldnt put it down. Informative, easy to read and comprehensive. This is not a book that I would lend to anyone for fear that it would not be returned. But it is a book I highly recommend particularly given the events the world is now facing.

Rating:
Summary: Post September 11, 2001 Review
Review: With the events of the second week in September 2001, every literate American should get a copy of Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game : The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia, and a copy of a map from the Eastern Mediterranean to India. Collectively we Americans are so ignorant of this part of the world. Now that American assets and probably American lives will be lost in our extension of the events told by Hopkirk, we should read his great book for better insight and understanding.

Rating:
Summary: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia
Review: As in "Like Hidden Fire" (reviewed in Middle East Quarterly, March 1995), his exemplary account of German and Ottoman cooperation against the British Empire during World War I, Hopkirk here tells the tale of the nineteenth-century Russian-British face-off in Asia. Again, wherever possible, Hopkirk tells his story "through the individuals, on either side, who took part in the great imperial struggle, rather than through historical forces or geopolitics." This approach has the advantage of bringing to light many remarkable individuals obscured by the passage of years; it also has the disadvantage of leaving the reader somewhat uncomprehending about the deeper causes or consequences of the action-packed pages he's read.

"The Great Game" rightly conjures up romantic visions of valor and deceit, for this century-long contest did inspire more than its share of remarkable deeds; at the same time, of course, it was a bloody, unforgiving confrontation with its quota of victims and even of massacres (most notably, the British at Afghan hands in 1842). Perhaps most memorable about the Game is its unending oddities and unexpected twists. For example, Lt. Richmond Shakespear in 1840 convinced the khan of Khiva to release the many Russian slaves toiling away in Khiva, not out of compassion for the captured Russians but to prevent Moscow from finding a pretext to invade Khiva. The tsar had to pretend delight with this operation; in private, however, he was furious at the gambit. "The Great Game" really does live up to its reputation.

Middle East Quarterly, June 1995

Rating:
Summary: Vividly told narrative epic
Review: Whether you have even the slightest interest in Central Asia, or are a student of the region this is a book well worth passing some time with. From the outset it is obvious that Hopkirk has steeped himself in the events of the Great Game, as well as the region itself. His observations from his visits to this isolated part of the world, and of the settings where the events occured bring home to the reader the incredible feats that were accomplished by the many characters of the Great Game. It is a book that I found throughly engrossing as Hopkirk lucidly conveys the triumph and the tragedy of world powers struggling for power in a region without the slightest consideration for the regions native populations. As he states on the final page "it was largely their blood which was spilt during the imperial struggle". This book serves as a fine memorial to those that lost their lives on all sides, as well as being a fine read.

Rating:
Summary: The story of the first Cold War
Review: Good stuff for the history buff. This is the story of a century of great adventurers from Victorian England and Tsarist Russia as they struggled for control of Central Asia. The back and forth between the two great Ninteenth Century powers is gripping as they use force and guile over what is now Iran, Iraq, Afganistan and the various other "-stans" that were former Soviet states.

The history is told through the varios exploits of Russian and British men who travel through lands unknown and risk their lives for adventure and Mother Country.

While most all of the stories are fascinating, it is hard to keep track of the years when the stories take place. The book is more like a series of great stories rather than a flowing narrative. It is also very Anglo-centric and would have been better to have been more balanced.

This book is recommended for those particulary interested in this era but not to anyone else.

Rating:
Summary: Stirring stuff
Review: Epic history at its best. So many wonderful stories woven together in a flowing tale of intrigue and adventure. If this book doesn't motivate you to something adventurous, or least read more Hopkirk, then you should be looking for a suicide manual.

Rating:
Summary: Great tale of adventures in Central Asia
Review: Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game is a very interesting story of British/Russian attempts at empire in central Asia. Apparently, many parts of the area had never been seen by European eyes, and had been set apart since the Mongols stormed through in the 14th century. The British spend most of the book panicking at what they percieve the Russians are doing, while the Russians don't really invade the territory until the 1870's. Most of the book is told through the story of a lone (and usually British) explorer mapping out previously unknown territory, seeing where the enemy (usually Russian) would come to invade.

Although invading Afghanistan wasn't so great an idea in the nineteenth century, much less in 1979. Reading about both of the routs of the tiny force of British there was very depressing. And of course the parallels with today are very interesting, it almost seems that The Great Game was the first Cold War, especially since they never actually went to war over India.

The only thing wrong with it to me is that Hopkirk's dryness with the material can sometimes make it a chore to read. All in all I would definitely say it is a good read for those who love spy stories, British or Russian history, or anyone who believes that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.