Free PDF The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (Kodansha Globe), by Peter Hopkirk

Free PDF The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (Kodansha Globe), by Peter Hopkirk

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The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (Kodansha Globe), by Peter Hopkirk

Free PDF The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia (Kodansha Globe), by Peter Hopkirk

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Amazon.com Review

In a phrase coined by Captain Arthur Connolly of the East India Company before he was beheaded in Bokhara for spying in 1842, a "Great Game" was played between Tsarist Russia and Victorian England for supremacy in Central Asia. At stake was the security of India, key to the wealth of the British Empire. When play began early in the 19th century, the frontiers of the two imperial powers lay two thousand miles apart, across vast deserts and almost impassable mountain ranges; by the end, only 20 miles separated the two rivals. Peter Hopkirk, a former reporter for The Times of London with wide experience of the region, tells an extraordinary story of ambition, intrigue, and military adventure. His sensational narrative moves at breakneck pace, yet even as he paints his colorful characters--tribal chieftains, generals, spies, Queen Victoria herself--he skillfully provides a clear overview of the geographical and diplomatic framework. The Great Game was Russia's version of America's "Manifest Destiny" to dominate a continent, and Hopkirk is careful to explain Russian viewpoints as fully as those of the British. The story ends with the fall of Tsarist Russia in 1917, but the demise of the Soviet Empire (hastened by a decade of bloody fighting in Afghanistan) gives it new relevance, as world peace and stability are again threatened by tensions in this volatile region of great mineral wealth and strategic significance. --John Stevenson

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From Publishers Weekly

Chronicles the imperial struggle for power in Central Asia between Victorian England and Czarist Russia. Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product details

Series: Kodansha Globe

Paperback: 564 pages

Publisher: Kodansha International (May 15, 1992)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1568360223

ISBN-13: 978-1568360225

Product Dimensions:

5.6 x 1.6 x 8.4 inches

Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.6 out of 5 stars

222 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#39,682 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Words cannot express the invaluable service that Peter Hopkirk has rendered to students of the Great Game with this impressive volume. Starting heartrendingly with the 1842 execution of Colonel Charles Stoddart and Captain Arthur Conolly at the hands of the villainous Emir of Bokhara, climaxing with Francis Younghusband's meeting with the Russian Captain Gromchevsky in the Pamirs that almost ignited a war, and ending with the ill-fated British mission to Lhasa, The Great Game keeps the reader in a constant state of suspense. During Hopkirk's research, he came across a rare photograph of Younghusband and Gromchevsky's 1889 meeting north of Hunza that almost came to disaster, which is included in this volume. Along the way, the reader is introduced to such personalities as Yakub Beg, Frederick Burnaby, James Abbott (namesake of the infamous Abbottabad of Bin Laden fame), Alexander Burnes, Colonel Nikolai Prejevalsky, Sir William Macnaghten, intelligence agent extraordinaire who was the [US Ambassador] Christopher Stevens of his day), and the terminally choleric Emir of Bokhara--all players in the Great Game. As a testament to Hopkirk's skill as a writer, The Great Game reads more like an espionage novel than a dry history. It is, in fact, a pure delight as well as a cautionary tale for our generation.

• Many boys (and probably many girls too) grow up dreaming about adventure: exploration, seizing opportunity, exotic locations, solitary travels in wild locales, especially to foreign enclaves never before visited by westerners (or only by mythic predecessors) with strange customs and filled with riches and danger and invariably ruled by mercurial despots. Since these no longer exist, or, more probably, have been de-romanticized, much of this longing is now transferred to science fiction. But in the 18th and 19th century it was all very real. In Asia, between the dominions of the great powers Russia and Great Britain, much of the continent was ruled by medieval political entities fragmented by deserts, rivers, and mountain ranges whose names themselves are the ultimate romantic evocation: The Himalayas, Hindu Kush, Karakoram, Oxus, the lands and cities of the Sild Road, Samarkand, Bokhara, Tashkent, Kandahar. It was a time when a single intrepid adventurer could make a heroic journey, bluff, impress, and bribe his way into the good graces of the local potentate, and make a treaty that would shift world power. Or perhaps explore and survey the unknown geography and customs to prepare for the next traveler. This was the Great Game. As the quotes on the cover attest, Peter Hopkirk is “truly the laureate of the Great Game.” A former top-shelf reporter, he has also sufficient historian cred and sense of drama to combine research, analysis, synthesis, and storytelling into a fantastic, entertaining, and informative book. A series of adventure stories for grown up boys. The tapestry is the vastness of central Asia in what are now Russian, India, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Xinxiang, Tibet, Nepal, and all the ‘stans’ of the former Soviet Union. As the decades progress the expeditions get larger. From the single adventurer to pairs to squadrons to occupation and frontier war. But (in retrospect this is obvious) never a major war between the principals. What cliff hangers: From a random page (242): “But is was far from over yet. Worse – much worse – was yet to follow.” And just plain excitement: on one random page (104) -- “where `all the horrors and abominations of Sodom and Gomorrah’ were practiced”; “Eversmann’s disguise … must have been remarkably convincing, for the Emir’s secret police … suspected nothing ….” And sweep: another chapter begins, “in the beginning of the 19th century, the three warring khanates of Khiva, Bokhara, and Kokand between them ruled the vast region … half the size of America ….” This is the flavor of the book. There is no pretense to making a larger point other than the obvious ones: clash of cultures, the mind of the adventurer, 19th century imperialism, the methods of exploration. This is a good thing. In fact, the only criticism is the huge number of stories. No part is too long or drags. But in the end 500 pages is a lot of Saturday afternoon movie excitement to read straight through. It may be best enjoyed over a year of Saturdays!

More fun than anything I've read for a while. The history of Russian expansion in Central Asia during the 19th century and the resulting conflict with Britain. If you've ever wondered how Kazakhstan became part of the Soviet Union then this book will give you the answer. Along the way you'll be introduced to some of the bravest, toughest and occasionally unluckiest men who ever served her Majesty. I couldn't put it down.

The Great Game is a name for the geo-political struggle between Russia and the U.K. for supremacy in the region that we today call Central Asia, the Chinese Far West and Afghanistan. This struggle, which bears many similarities to more recent conflicts in this region, took place during the 19th century. The gist of the conflict pitted an expansive Russian Empire against the defensive British Colony of India (today's India and Pakistan.) Then, as was the case in the 1980s, the concern was with Russian expansion towards the Indian Ocean. In the 19th century, it was the British who got their ass handed to them by the Afghani's- in particular during the first Afghani War of the 1840s the Brits lost 16,000 men from their occupying force- during the course of their retreat- from an Army that numbered about 16,000. Aside from the to-and-fro of the British occupying strageically important countries like Afghanistan, the Great Game was a contest between the secret agents of Britain and Russia- trying to bring disparate Central Asian Despots "into the fold." Along the way many people- British and Russians- lost their lives in ways directly and indirectly related to the conflict. The Great Game very much pre-saged the cloak and dagger aspects of the Russian/Western Cold War in the 20th century- secret codes, spies, murky geo-political ambitions- it was all there in the 19th century. The Brits and Russians even had their own Cold Warriors- called Anglophobes on the Russian side and Russophobes on the British. These partisan created their own body of literature that excited much popular comment, much as similar literature created excited during the 20th century cold war. I can't help but wonder to what extent the American Government was familiar with the narrative of the Great Game in the aftermath of 9/11, and why, exactly, they thought our intervention would end any differently then the intervention of the Russians and British in the 19th century. Afghanistan is a bloody place, best keep your distance, is my view.

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