Rating: 
Summary: A fantastic book about fantastic people
Review: All I can say is this: Exactly a year after I read this book I was on my way to see the places in Central Asia about which this book is written.
Rating:
Summary: A tremendous tale
Review: Hopkirk's splendidly fluid narrative describes with tremendous zeal
and excitement the cold-war like atmosphere that prevailed in Asia Minor from 1830 to 1900. The British, as they ruled
India, realized that it was one of their most treasured possessions. And Russia recognized this as well. From the time of
Peter the Great, Russia had always wanted to posses India and her resources. From the times that Nadir Shah, the ruler of
mighty Persia, sacked Delhi and took away as much as he possibly carry over the hostile passes of the Hindukush
mountain, the wealth of India was legendary. Even Napoleon, prior to his disastrous invasion of Russia, had approached
the Tsar and proposed a combined effort to drive the British out of India and capture the country and it's fabulous
wealth. But since a sea invasion was impossible logistically for Russia, a land invasion was the only choice. The Great Game
recounts will chilling detail and with great political intrigue the events and actions that forged Central Asia what it is today as
a result of this quest for conquest. But in his book Hopkirk also does us a wonderful favour: he recounts the travels, in brief,
of some of the most intrepid and enduring of the Great Game Travelers like Alexander Burnes, Robert Shaw, and Fred Burnaby.
Rating:
Summary: Great Game. Great Adventure. Great read. Great book.
Review: Quite simply, a fantastic book. The title, of course, refers to the struggle between Moscow and London that was the last century's equivalent of the Cold War, but it is not the tome on geopolitics that it may appear to be at first glance. It is filled with stories of soldiers and spies exploring the Wild West of British India and Central Asia, all true and with plots that have more romance than a Gary Cooper movie. It can be a daunting read--I took a year on it--but Peter Hopkirk has the ability to impa
Rating:
Summary: Gripping tales of high intrigue across the roof of the world
Review: Hopkins combines superb scholarship and a gripping writing style which draws the reader into this fascinating series of tales of 19th century imperial espionage and covert action in Central and South Asia. The courageous (and ofttimes fatal) real-life adventures of the British spies and their Russian opposites match and frequently exceed those conjured by the most creative historical novelists. Drawing on insatiable curiosity and remarkable linquistic skills, these operatives donned disguises of regional tribesmen, and criss-crossed the roof of the world into enemy territory, collecting intelligence and influencing strategic alliances in some of Earth's most remote kingdoms and khanates. Hopkirk's descriptions paint a vivid and realistic canvas of the vast expanses, the peoples there, and high political intrigue. A fascinating read, that's hard to put down
Rating:
Summary: A mesmerizing account of the players in the Great Game.
Review: Hopkirk's strength is in bringing history, and in particular the people involved in making history, alive. This fascinating account of the main players involved in the Great game is a memorable read
Rating: 
Summary: Riveting historical narrative
Review: Despite Hopkirk's occasional cloying English jingoism I still
couldn't put this book down. A fascinating account of a little-known conflict in the last great colonial struggle.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Story
Review: If you like history told on a grand scale, you'll love Peter Hopkirk's "The Great Game." The author has done a superb job making an obscure epoch of nineteenth history come to life in an easily accessible and immensely entertaining narrative. Employing a style and approach highly reminiscent of such bestsellers as David Fromkin's "A Peace to End All Peace" or Robert Massie's "Dreadnought," Hopkirk uses a number of harrowing expeditions by young, intrepid (and mostly British) army officers and diplomats to convey the drama, intrigue and danger of the imperial contest that Rudyard Kipling christened "The Great Game."A quick word of caution: this book isn't really a primer on current events in Afghanistan and the surrounding areas. I mention that because there are some exerts to that effect on the cover of the new paperback and I suspect that angle has been pushed by the publishers to promote sales. Yes, there are some graphic tales of western forces being mutilated by Muslim mobs incited by the harangues of mullahs in Kabul and other now familiar cities, but that is where the potential similarities end. In short, this is a book about nineteenth century imperial competition; Islam in general and Afghanistan in particular are elements of that story, not the focus. It is told primarily from the British perspective and focuses on their century-long cold war with imperial Russia. The borders of their global empires became, in London's opinion, uncomfortable close in the mid-1800s as Moscow's borders expanded inexorably southwards in search of new economic markets and trade routes until they encroached upon the mountain passes to northern India, thus threatening the "crown jewel" of the British Empire. For over a hundred years the British worked to parry this threat, oscillating between a proactive policy of military presence in Persia, Afghanistan and elsewhere (known as "the forward school" and leading to three wars) and the withdrawn, passive defense of India (derisively dubbed "masterly inactivity"). I found two things to be particularly remarkable in this tale. First, it is difficult to underestimate just how little the British and Russians knew about the inhabitants and topography that filled the critical buffer zone between their two great empires. It would be no exaggeration to claim that we know more today about the surface of Mars than British knew about the Pamir region north of Kashmir in the late nineteenth century. Second, most of the leading characters that explored and charted these unknown areas for their respective governments were in their mid-twenties at the time of their heroic missions. Few episodes of international grand strategy and policy have been so directly shaped by the deeds of such young men. A number of modern historians have dismissed the threat that imperial Russian expansion presented to India, but Hopkirk asserts that the challenge was genuine and the British response reasoned and legitimate. In the process, one can't help but get the impression that after long years of close study, the author has concluded that the "forward school" was the correct one, his specific claims to be non-judgmental notwithstanding.
Rating:
Summary: Great Game, Great Adventure
Review: This book is certainly not dull. Despite its length, it's lively and entertaining reading that is also extremely educational. I am definitely a layman. My knowledge of this era of competition between Britain and Russia was very shadowy. What was great about this book is that it filled in so many gaps and helped me make connections to other things I knew. This book gave me a lot of insight into many things that are seemingly unrelated. I was shocked to read that the Russian playwright Griboyedov was hacked to pieces while he was serving in a diplomatic post in Central Asia. (Stage acting guru Stanislavsky devoted an entire book to the interpretation of one of Griboyedov's characters.) There were connections to the American Civil War, The Crimean War, The Boxer Rebellion, The Russo-Japanese War, the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Revolution. It clarified a lot of Victorian literature for me, both British and Russian. Kipling's KIM is now more understandable to me and I have a better idea what Count Vronsky did in his military service in ANNA KARENINA.
But for me this book was basically a grand adventure saga, replete with spies, behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing, ambitious military campaigns and hair-raising sieges. Parts of it are extremely suspenseful. There are also passages of pure horror and violence. I found this book exceptional on many levels. This is one of the best books I've read this year (and I've read some good things lately). Five Stars.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Story
Review: If you like history told on a grand scale, you'll love Peter Hopkirk's "The Great Game." The author has done a superb job making an obscure epoch of nineteenth history come to life in an easily accessible and immensely entertaining narrative. Employing a style and approach highly reminiscent of such bestsellers as David Fromkin's "A Peace to End All Peace" or Robert Massie's "Dreadnought," Hopkirk uses a number of harrowing expeditions by young, intrepid (and mostly British) army officers and diplomats to convey the drama, intrigue and danger of the imperial contest that Rudyard Kipling christened "The Great Game." A quick word of caution: this book isn't really a primer on current events in Afghanistan and the surrounding areas. I mention that because there are some exerts to that effect on the cover of the new paperback and I suspect that angle has been pushed by the publishers to promote sales. Yes, there are some graphic tales of western forces being mutilated by Muslim mobs incited by the harangues of mullahs in Kabul and other now familiar cities, but that is where the potential similarities end. In short, this is a book about nineteenth century imperial competition; Islam in general and Afghanistan in particular are elements of that story, not the focus. It is told primarily from the British perspective and focuses on their century-long cold war with imperial Russia. The borders of their global empires became, in London's opinion, uncomfortable close in the mid-1800s as Moscow's borders expanded inexorably southwards in search of new economic markets and trade routes until they encroached upon the mountain passes to northern India, thus threatening the "crown jewel" of the British Empire. For over a hundred years the British worked to parry this threat, oscillating between a proactive policy of military presence in Persia, Afghanistan and elsewhere (known as "the forward school" and leading to three wars) and the withdrawn, passive defense of India (derisively dubbed "masterly inactivity"). I found two things to be particularly remarkable in this tale. First, it is difficult to underestimate just how little the British and Russians knew about the inhabitants and topography that filled the critical buffer zone between their two great empires. It would be no exaggeration to claim that we know more today about the surface of Mars than British knew about the Pamir region north of Kashmir in the late nineteenth century. Second, most of the leading characters that explored and charted these unknown areas for their respective governments were in their mid-twenties at the time of their heroic missions. Few episodes of international grand strategy and policy have been so directly shaped by the deeds of such young men. A number of modern historians have dismissed the threat that imperial Russian expansion presented to India, but Hopkirk asserts that the challenge was genuine and the British response reasoned and legitimate. In the process, one can't help but get the impression that after long years of close study, the author has concluded that the "forward school" was the correct one, his specific claims to be non-judgmental notwithstanding.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Overview
Review: My brother introduced this book to me 5 years ago, but its size intimidated me, so I put it aside. Big mistake. I finally started reading it and found it completely intriguing. I had NO idea of any of the history of Russian expansionism into Central Asia. Zip. Zilch. It's a tragedy that this topic is not covered in American high school curriculums. Our teachers and professors blathered on about the cold war, but I had no idea of how Russia and the Soviet Union came to be what they were/are in the 20th and 21st centuries. I would have appreciated a better background on Russian and Soviet acquisitions of surrounding territories. This book provides all that and more in a very readable, summary fashion, as a tale told around individual historic figures. Very entertaining and hard to put down.
-pj
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