The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk

Nov 17, 2008 Erin Deathstar rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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. And I have grown to LOVE Kim. 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...more 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. And I have grown to LOVE Kim. 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 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 (!!!!) without recognizing that all of those guys grew up reading colonial-adventure stories, which were very much like the "Wild West" novels of that day. (Think mid-40sWB 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. I keep thinking Karl May, who was a German writer who wrote all kinds of thrilling Indian Jones-type adventures set in locales that were exotic to a European: the American Wild West, India, Africa, Arabia (cf. Lawrence, he read them too.), China and Central Asia.

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.) The Brits had a ton of colonies, the jewel of which was the Raj. As the Russians made attempts to grab parts of Central Asia, the Brits freaked out over the safety of their sacred cow and engaged in a very entertaining, deadly and technical spy game with the Russians to infiltrate and map these unknown regions and try to ingratiate themselves with the local leaders.

Hopkirk describes this struggle from its nascence in Alexander I's triumph over Napoleon to the decline of Russia after the Russo-Japanese War. While Russia was intent on expanding its empire into Central Asia, Britain was trying very hard to keep India British, so they were on full-alert to any Russian incursions into Central Asia. And they were keeping a third-eye-out for any kingdoms they could snatch up with promises of Victorian infrastructural progress. (You'll enjoy visualizing manifestations of Victorian progress (the steam train, the telegraph perhaps, the Enfield Gun), when you're reading of the fate of Arthur Conolly- repeatedly, peripatetically successful in all exploration and espionage sorties, a BIG PLAYA in the Game- when he wears out the welcome of the Emir of Bukhara. (or was it Queen Victoria who wore out his welcome??)

"Conolly and Stoddart, whose plight had been all but forgotten in the wake of the Kabul catastrophe, were, he reported, both dead. It had happened , he said, back in June, when Britain's reputation as a power to be feared in Central Asia was at rock bottom. Furious at receiving no reply to his personal letter to Queen Victoria, and no longer worried by any fear of retribution, the Emir of Bokhara had ordered the two Englishmen, then enjoying a brief spell of freedom, to be seized and thrown back in prison. A few days later they had been taken from there, with their hands bound, and led into the great square before the Ark, or citadel, where stood the Emir's palace. What followed next, the Persian swore, he had learned from the Executioner's own lips.
First, while a silent crowd looked on, the two British officers were made to dig their own graves. Then they were ordered to kneel down and prepare for death. Colonel Stoddart, after loudly denouncing the tyranny of the Emir, was the first to be beheaded. Next the executioner turned to Conolly and informed him that the Emir had offered to spare his life if he would renounce Christianity and embrace Islam. Aware that Stoddart's forcible conversion had not saved him from imprisonment and death. Conolly, a devout Christian, replied: 'Colonel Stoddart has been a Musselman for three years and you have killed him. I will not become one, and I am ready to die.' He then stretched out his neck for the executioner and a moment later his head rolled in the dust with that of his friend."

The battle over Central Asia was fought primarily through spies. And this is what makes it even more thrilling. All of this conflict was conducted by artists and inventors and intellectuals and con men far below the radar of the diplomats and politicians. The men in charge were explorers, spy masters, and spies who had an incredible wealth of means before them. They were map-makers (again cf. Lawrence), surveyors, costume artists, cross-dressers, hucksters and linguists. Sometimes magicians, witches and jewel connoisseurs and libertines.

Also, super-relevant for our time with the silent struggle for oil in Central Asia. Every now and again, one comes across an article about Central Asia, but the coverage is hardly in proportion to the intensity of business, political, criminal, and petro-economical activity in that region. There's a lot of unknown knowledge in this area and it's pretty fun to read about it before it's been totally containerized.

Highly recommended for people who are trying to figure out why and how the US is in Afghanistan; the why/how of the Soviet invasion in 1980, the upcoming Great Game in Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia, Turkistan, Uzbekistan....
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Jul 09, 2011 Cameron Willis rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: russia, india, central-asia, british-empire

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...more

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Oct 23, 2008 Robert rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: readers interested in foreign affairs, central and south Asia, and world history.

This book is an excellent account of the competition between the British and Russians to dominate Central and South Asia, including the Central Asian republics, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan throughout the 19th century With the development of Caspian Basin oil and gas, the "great game" goes on even today--2008. So this book is fascinating reading, even if it was first published around 1990. Perhaps the most disturbing thing about it, however, is the degree to which British military adve...more

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Jan 01, 2010 Gerald Sinstadt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"There were peaches, plums, apricots, pears, apples, quinces, cherries, walnuts, mulberries pomegranates and vines all growing in one garden. There were also nightingales, blackbirds, thrushes and doves ... and chattering magpies on almost every tree." Thus Alexander Burnes, a young British subaltern, likening the city he had entered for the first time to paradise. The date was April 1832. The city was Kabul.

Peter Hopkirk's masterly history goes a long way to explaining how the capital of Afgha...more "There were peaches, plums, apricots, pears, apples, quinces, cherries, walnuts, mulberries pomegranates and vines all growing in one garden. There were also nightingales, blackbirds, thrushes and doves ... and chattering magpies on almost every tree." Thus Alexander Burnes, a young British subaltern, likening the city he had entered for the first time to paradise. The date was April 1832. The city was Kabul.

Peter Hopkirk's masterly history goes a long way to explaining how the capital of Afghanistan and its surroundings have been transformed into the bloody battleground which features so often in today's television news. The story covers most of the 19th Century, when Russia was flexing its muscles to extend its eastern boundaries while India - at the outset run by a commercial enterprise, the East India Company, with its own army - feared an invasion from the north. Persia and Turkey had their own interests to protect and possibly to advance. Between the territories of the great powers lay a virtually unmapped, mountainous region populated by warring khanates.

Here are the men who shaped the conflict, sometimes in disguise, always in danger, often wielding swords and bayonets. They were principally British and Russian with a supporting cast of Cossacks, Gurkhas, Sikhs, Afghans, Turcomans and Kashmiris. Treachery, bluff and double bluff were the cards in the Great Game. Sieges and battles, vividly described, make for enthralling reading; heroes emerge whose deeds earned many a Victoria Cross. There were occasions when officers from the two sides could share a meal on a mountainside and drink a toast to the possibility that their next meeting might be as deadly enemies. By the end the dead numbered not tens but hundreds of thousands.

Not the least achievement of this fine book is to present much of the struggle in terms of the brave men from both sides who took leading roles, but also to preserve a clear view of the fluctuating political and diplomatic exchanges between London, Calcutta and Simla, and St Petersburg. Successive Tsars come and go, the British Parliament is itself a battleground between Tories and Liberals.

There are lessons here in abundance, not least to leave one dismayed by what has become of Kabul between 1832 and 2009.(less)

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Dec 02, 2009 Paul Aslanian rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Joel gave me this book and told me: "I wish Bush would have read it before he went into Afghanistan and Iraq" After reading it, I now understand Joel's thinking.

I gave the book only three stars because, while the content is five stars, I thought the author's attention to detail was tedious and over done. I was interested in the broad sweeps not the dtails of who was Amand's brother-in-law.

What I learned in this book that chronicles the contest between Russia and Great Britain for influence and/o...more Joel gave me this book and told me: "I wish Bush would have read it before he went into Afghanistan and Iraq" After reading it, I now understand Joel's thinking.

I gave the book only three stars because, while the content is five stars, I thought the author's attention to detail was tedious and over done. I was interested in the broad sweeps not the dtails of who was Amand's brother-in-law.

What I learned in this book that chronicles the contest between Russia and Great Britain for influence and/or control over Central Asia--think what is now Iran and Afghanistan. Britain wanted to protect its flanks to keep Russia away from India which could be vurnerable were Russia to control the land right up to India's borders. Remember, oil was not in the picture during the 19th century. Also what was at stake was trade and trade routs through this area. Think of Russia wanting to sell stuff to this area--we learn that production costs were lower in Russia than Britain

My takes aways:

(1)This area then, as now, is more tribal than national;

(2)These people are violent--even to each other. They take slaves, they rape neighbors, they kill each other in very wicked ways; and

(3)The ONLY thing they respect is POWER. Hopkirk tell many, many stories of efforts to win over tribal leaders other than by force. In every case it seems to me that whatever is used as a substitute for power is interpreted as a sign of weakness. (Mr. Obama think of this as you try to wim over Iran and its nuclear effort)

(4) Positions are "for sale". Hopkirk tells of many instances where the Brits come in and "buy off" a tribal leader only to learn much to their surprise that the deal is off because the Russians offered a better deal. Contract law is not embedded in the front lobe of their brain.

It is amazing how little we have learned about dealing with these peoples and cultures. Listening to Obama last night made me think again of my take aways from Hopkirk.

So a five on content, a three on delivery. My take. Joel?

PJA(less)

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Dec 02, 2009 Bill rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Great Game is a cautionary tale showing the huge gamble the U. S. is now taking in Afghanistan. It is well a written history of Central Asia throughout the 19th Century.

Hopkirk records the repeated conflict, at war and through diplomacy, between England and Russia. England believed Russia would invade India and Russia was extending its empire in Central Asia and the Far East. Based on the recent availability of Russian archives, Hopkirk questions if Russia ever had a serious intent to invade...more The Great Game is a cautionary tale showing the huge gamble the U. S. is now taking in Afghanistan. It is well a written history of Central Asia throughout the 19th Century.

Hopkirk records the repeated conflict, at war and through diplomacy, between England and Russia. England believed Russia would invade India and Russia was extending its empire in Central Asia and the Far East. Based on the recent availability of Russian archives, Hopkirk questions if Russia ever had a serious intent to invade India.

At the beginning of the 19th Century much of Central Asia, including Afghanistan, was a blank on English maps. Several brave Englishmen, frequently in disguise to avoid death or slavery, explored the huge territory. Mountains, deserts and warring tribes made their efforts exceptionally dangerous and lonely. Many, although assigned by the English government were told that they should deny any government involvement if they were captured.

One of these men was Alexander Burnes (1805-1841.) He is used in this report as an example of several other British explorers documented by Hopkirk. In 1831, he was a young officer in the Indian political service. England was trying to bring Ranjit Singh, the ruler of the Punjab into its orbit. Burnes was charged with the mission of bringing a gift of five impressive horses as a gift to Singh up the Indus River to Lahore. The gift was a cover. The real reason for the effort was to determine if navigation was possible on the Indus and to explore Lahore's defenses.

Burnes then used his success to obtain permission for a much longer and dangerous trip. He proposed an exploration, mapping and spying trip form India to Kabul, onto Bokhara and finally a return to India via the Caspian Sea and Persia. Bokhara is now the capital of a province in Uzbekistan and Persia, for the most part, is now Iran. As was the case with Ranjit Singh, Burnes charmed Dost Mohammed, the ruler of Afghanistan, and Koosh Begee, the Grand Vizier of Bokhara.

Burnes, in 1839, was appointed to be the English political officer in Kabul. By 1841 the English had ousted Dost Mohammed and replaced him with Shah Shujah a very unpopular move with the locals. Also unpopular was Burnes womanizing. A mob hacked him to death on November 1, 1841.

Hopkirk tells about many other brave men both English and Russian who face death or were killed because they were victims of international and local politics. An excellent read.
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Oct 08, 2009 Jason rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a history of Britain's involvement in Afghanistan. As John Oliver once said, it's a bit hilly and difficult to pack for. I read this book because I figured it would be darkly amusing to watch the US make all of the same mistakes over again. Spot on.

It's a bit of a read but consistently quality throughout. It's history but not really dry, especially because apparently the best way to advance in the British army during the 19th century was to leave India and head into the mountains to scou...more

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Jun 26, 2009 'Aussie Rick' rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

Peter Hopkirk's book 'The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia' is a great historical account and a very enjoyable book to read. 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 560 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...more

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Apr 14, 2009 Ethan Cramer-Flood rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is famous history book in its own right, but it's all the more relevant considering the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian Sub-Continent are the geopolitical center of the world these days. Anyone who claims they understand the history of those areas but hasn't read The Great Game is full of shit. Also: if you want to get a better idea of why smart people have been saying for a long time that outside powers should _not_ be messing around in Afghanistan, this is the book to read. You'...more This is famous history book in its own right, but it's all the more relevant considering the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Indian Sub-Continent are the geopolitical center of the world these days. Anyone who claims they understand the history of those areas but hasn't read The Great Game is full of shit. Also: if you want to get a better idea of why smart people have been saying for a long time that outside powers should _not_ be messing around in Afghanistan, this is the book to read. You'll understand the Afghans' reputation a lot better afterward.

The book is also ridiculously good. If every work of history could be like this one I would spend the rest of my life getting history degrees. The way it drew me in reminded me of King Leopold's Ghost. Peter Hopkirk, like Adam Hochschild, is that rarest of breeds: an impeccable and rigorous academic historian who somehow instinctively writes like a journalist. He knows where the action and the drama are, he humanizes global history, and he can make forgotten events in the most obscure places seem sexy and romantic as hell.

The Great Game is the story of dozens of 19th century James Bonds, Indiana Jones's, and Lawrence of Arabias -- British and Russians alike -- playing a giant chess game of exploration, intrigue, manipulation, spycraft, improvisational diplomacy, strategic expansion, and tactical feints. All while traveling thousands of miles from home base, in unknown, uncharted lands, where most people want them dead and communication with leadership could take weeks or months. This is Rudyard Kipling stuff, in real life. Hopkirk helps us get to know all the most legendary spies, soldiers, and explorers of the day -- many of whom became enormously famous in their time -- and keeps us on the edge of our seat as they play their parts in the larger imperial drama unfolding between the two greatest powers of the mid-19th century.

The Great Game is highly biased in favor of the British point of view, suspicious of Russian historical interpretation, and disinterested in the natives view of the epic imperial joust. But Hopkirk expresses just enough admiration and awe of the Russian players in the drama to maintain his credibility. And as far as the natives go, to be fair, theirs is not the story he's trying to tell.

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Sep 18, 2011 Nick rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a splendid popular history of the struggle between Russia and the United Kingdom for supremacy in the mountains and deserts of Asia between India and what the Russians called Caucasia. The spies, the soldiers, the ferocious mountain warriors, the beheadings, the desperate midnight sorties and deadly sieges -- it's all here. The Victorian era saw the culmination of Russia's nonstop additions to its empire, and England's attempts to provide buffers between Russia and India, so that the for...more

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Aug 13, 2011 Stephen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, top-books, foreign-policy

History texts usually tend to be a bit dry and can be inaccessible to those who lack basic knowledge of the events discussed within. Such books can easily cause readers to become frustrated or bored and eventually dissuade them from reading through to the end. When this is the case, reading becomes a chore.

Fortunately, Hopkirk's account of the Great Game by no means fits this standard as it is fun to read. In it, he tells the history of British and Russian foreign policy in Asia largely through...more

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Mar 26, 2013 Mats Frick rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Khiva, Wakhan, Kachgar, Chitral... Ringer någon klocka? Det gjorde det inte hos mig heller innan jag började läsa "The Great Game" av Peter Hopkirk. Boken handlar om en historisk period få är intresserade av idag och som utspelar sig på platser ingen känner till. Annat var det i det viktorianska England då händelser i centralasien var på löpet nästan varje dag. För det här handlar om det stora spelet, kraftmätningen mellan de två stora imperierna under 1800-talet och början på 1900-talet: Storbr...more

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Feb 13, 2011 Ann rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

More than fine as a military history of Russian & British machinations in Central Asia (probably a must-read on the subject, in fact) whose prose, despite leaning heavily on the crutch of cliches, has a galloping momentum that nicely dispersed the clouds pass over my vision whenever I encounter dates and things that happened on them. But, criminy, does Hopkirk ever hoist the tattered flag of imperialism high. This wasn't, nor should be, billed as having anything to do with the culture of the...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Maitrey rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history

First things first, it is an engaging read, with just the correct amount of detail and narrative punch.

Covering a time period right from the 16th Century, when the Russians slowly started expanding eastwards and came in conflict first with the Central Asian Khanates, then with the British Raj in the 19th Century, the book finishes with the Great Game's own end in the beginning of the 20th Century when Japan beat the Russian Empire. Hopkirk does a decent job of covering such a massive time span w...more First things first, it is an engaging read, with just the correct amount of detail and narrative punch.

Covering a time period right from the 16th Century, when the Russians slowly started expanding eastwards and came in conflict first with the Central Asian Khanates, then with the British Raj in the 19th Century, the book finishes with the Great Game's own end in the beginning of the 20th Century when Japan beat the Russian Empire. Hopkirk does a decent job of covering such a massive time span without getting too technical and boring his readers.

However, what took me aback was the language and propaganda used throughout the book, which is more suitable for something written in the heady days of Imperialism in the 1870s and 1880s, rather than a book published in 1990! Consider for example when Hopkirk talks about the meeting between the British spy/diplomat/emissary Alexander Burnes (later Sir Alexander), and the Emir of Afghanistan, Dost Mohammad: "Dost Mohammad, being an Afghan prince was schooled in the art of intrigue and treachery, right from childhood". This is shockingly irresponsible, all the more so, because we know it was Alexander Burnes who was "intriguing" for the Raj in Afghanistan.

The book is extremely lopsided, using loaded terms such as "Asiatic despot" and "Oriental tyrant" with depressing regularity, and presenting all Asian rulers right from the Shah of Persia, to the leader of the Sikhs, to the Khans, Emirs and chiefs of various kingdoms as corrupt, venal and easily seduced by money, trinkets and women handed out to them by clever and resourceful Europeans. While this was true of many of them, to simply state this without exploring the kind of military, political and even cultural and religious pressure that the Europeans could bring to bear is very misleading. Even the repetitive stating of the fact that many of the Central Asian chiefs had a misguided sense of their own importance and no idea about Britain, Russia and their relative strengths smacks of ridicule after a while, which is bizarre coming from a historian specializing in these subjects.

It appears that Hopkirk has swallowed the propaganda, of that age, whole. He even goes so far as to explain away naked Russian imperialism and racism in Central Asia as some kind of payback for what the Mongols did in Russia some four centuries earlier! What next, the Scramble for Africa was revenge for the trauma suffered by the Europeans thanks to Hannibal? Similarly, the well documented murder, rape and pillaging carried out by the British in the first Anglo-Afghan War is simply stated as "boisterous womanizing".

Every Russian advance is met with a shudder, and Hopkirk trembles with rage when news of what would now be termed "human rights abuses" is carried out by the Russian army in Central Asia. But no mention is made of what the British themselves were engaging in India. And the conquering of the Punjab and the Sindh by the British in the 1840s (mainly as massive new opium farmland) is dealt with in a few short sentences. While Hopkirk studiously mentions the various majors, captains and lieutenants (on both the British and Russian sides) who heroically laid down their lives, there is a characteristic lack of any Asian names, and even the name of the contemporary Shahs is never mentioned (while all the Tsars are). Hopkirk tries to take neither the British or Russian side, but there is not a single note on what the Indians, Persians or other Asians thought or think about the Great Game, supposedly for whose benefit it was "played".

What is crippling in this book is that Hopkirk fails to see this period with a modern eye. While it isn't necessary that all periods of history should be critically re-looked at, Hopkirk does a serious misjudgment here, because this book serves as a salve to Western readers who still think that Europeans "did a jolly good job" with their Empires (as is evident in this book's popularity, right here on Goodreads). It also doesn't help that Peter Hopkirk unabashedly hero worships questionable characters such as Alexander Burnes who are directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths, rape and imprisonment of thousands.

Bottomline: Engaing read, if you can overcome the fact that Peter Hopkirk has distinctly one-dimensional and outdated views.(less)

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Aug 26, 2012 Sicofonia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: To anyone!!!!!

I very rarely give 5 stars to a book, and when I do it is for a reason.

The Great Game is by far one of the books I've ever enjoyed reading. As some other fellow "goodreaders" put it, this books reads like an adventure novel. It is concise and clear in it's arguments, and the way is written always left me wanting for more after finishing a chapter. It's like one story unfolds the following one. It is not very often that you see something like this on a book, let a alone a history one. That's why...more

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Jan 28, 2010 Eugenia rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Why is history so important? Because it helps us to understand better our present, realize the deep reasons of recent events and make more accurate forecasts regarding consequences they may have. Why do we learn nothing from history? Well, perhaps because we keep ourselves too alienated, too distant from the events that happened in the past and forget that history is nothing but a sum of decisions and actions made by individuals.

The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Ho...more Why is history so important? Because it helps us to understand better our present, realize the deep reasons of recent events and make more accurate forecasts regarding consequences they may have. Why do we learn nothing from history? Well, perhaps because we keep ourselves too alienated, too distant from the events that happened in the past and forget that history is nothing but a sum of decisions and actions made by individuals.

The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia by Peter Hopkirk is one of those rare books that turn boring academic, historical reading into a breathtaking, thrilling, and eye-opening experience. Peter Hopkirk shows a century of confrontation between Great Britain and Russia in Asian regions through the lives and fates of people involved into the Great Game. There is no abstract “Britain” or “Russia” or “Persia” in the book, but there are people of flesh and blood, with their motives, wills and ambitions. The book is written like a very good thriller. You see the grandiose chess game developing in the map of Asia and suddenly understand that it is not all over yet. The geographical names mentioned in the book are the same as those you might read in the morning news. Places of the strongest political tension in the modern world are the same that were in the 19th century. Kabul, just to mention one. “I wish our politicians would have read it before we went into Afghanistan and Iraq” one reader wrote in his review, and this is the thought you can’t get rid of throughout the book.

In early 19th century, Asia was not explored by Europeans well enough. The maps of Afghanistan, Tibet and surroundings were very approximate with many white spots on them. Europeans also lacked information about multiple tribes and nationalities that lived in the rocky and deserted area. Any pieces of information about landscapes, aboriginal people and their attitudes toward strangers were priceless those days. Great Britain needed to know everything about the lands that laid between India and Russia, Britain’s major competitor in this area. Young (many players of the Great Game were just 20 or a bit older) men volunteered for research expeditions to Asian countries and gained valuable information, sometimes at price of their health and lives.

Along with the heroism of Asian pioneers, Peter Hopkirk draws the meanness and unscrupulousness of politicians – both Russian and British. Though the author does not give moral appraisals, providing readers with the facts, it is impossible to stay calm and objective when reading about the decisions that were motivated with the greediness and/or stupidity and/or ignorance and cost a thousand innocent lives. What a miserable fate to be a pawn in the Great Game of superpowers!

It is particularly interesting to read about cross-cultural conflicts that developed in Asia, where British, Asian and Russian ways of thinking and ways of acting clashed. Although The Great Game covers the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, it it has a message for contemporary audiences. We think that the world is changing so fast, but in fact many things have not been changed for ages. any modern problems the world faces today are rooted in the Great Game. At least, it is useful to know the rules…(less)

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Mar 23, 2009 Steve rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction

If you liked The Man Who Would be King (story or movie), Kim, the Flashman novels, or Errol Flynn's Charge of the Light Brigade, this is the book for you. Seriously, there's enough material in this book for twenty movies or novels. What a cast of characters! Evil Khans, torture, battles, sieges, (lots of) intrigue, all taking place on remarkable landscapes that are often both beautiful and cruel. Hopkirk is a wonderful writer, and he brings the "Great Game" to life. On the downside, it is a popu...more

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Jul 10, 2011 Michael rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

We've all heard that Afghanistan has repulsed invasions for centuries. Here is the inside story of this tribal nation as a chessboard on which Russian and Great Britain played a global game of chess (with occasional armed conflicts) through the 18th and 19th centuries. Russian's game was to expand its central Asian holdings and perhaps (truly in a quest for world domination) take India from the Brits and Constantinople from the waning Ottomans. This wild tale of intrigue includes a litany of 19t...more

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Jul 15, 2011 Matthieutc rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: balkans-central-asia

A great history book that reads like a thriller. On many instances I was riveted by the suspenseful narrative and learned a lot at the same time.

The book covers the history of the Great Game, from about 1700 to about 1917 although the focus is on the 19th century. Issues covered in this book include the waning threat of the Mongols -- the Napoleonic threat to British India -- the exploration of Central Asia by British and Russian explorers -- the siege of Herat -- the race for Khiva -- the annex...more A great history book that reads like a thriller. On many instances I was riveted by the suspenseful narrative and learned a lot at the same time.

The book covers the history of the Great Game, from about 1700 to about 1917 although the focus is on the 19th century. Issues covered in this book include the waning threat of the Mongols -- the Napoleonic threat to British India -- the exploration of Central Asia by British and Russian explorers -- the siege of Herat -- the race for Khiva -- the annexation of the Central Asian khanates by Russia -- the first and second Afghan war -- the bloody expedition of Younghusband into Tibet -- the Russian railway from Krasnovodsk to Tashkent.

I was irked by two things during the reading of this book. First off, the author is often making heroes out of the British explorers when most of them were probably naive and cruel. Not to mention jingoistic -- blatantly trusting the superiority of Christianity and of the British Crown. I understand the author is trying to be objective -- relating facts -- but the savagery that took place during the Great Game is fact too and it should be deplored at every turn.
Second, the author is clearly positively biased towards the British. He relates Russian opinions on a few occasions but not nearly enough to counter-balance the British narrative.

All in all a great book, if lengthy. It clocks in at 525 pages.

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A highlight of the book is the story of Christie and Pottinger:
More than once they had to lie their way out of trouble by embellishing and improving their cover story to suit the circumstances. Had the fiercely independent Baluchis discovered what they were up to, it would immediately have been assumed that the British were exploring their lands preparatory to seizing them. But fortunately for Christie and Pottinger no one living in this remote region had ever set eyes on a European. So far nobody had penetrated their disguise -- or so it appeared. p.40

The author covers the rush for Khiva:
The Russians decided instead to embark on a bold initiative of their own. This was to seize Khiva, and old dream of theirs, before the British began to venture north of the Oxus, not merely with agents, but with armies and caravans of merchandise. With Britain behaving so aggressively in Afghanistan, the Russians could hardly have asked for a better moment to make their own first major thrust into Central Asia. Nor was their excuse for it easy to fault. Its officially proclaimed aims were to free to many Russian and other slaves known to be held by the Khivans, to punish the Turcoman raiders and slavers who regularly plundered tthe native caravans bearing Russian goods, and to replace the ruler -- just as the British were doing in Afghanistan -- with a compliant candidate of their own who would forswear the barabric practices of his predecessor. p.203

On the First Afghan War:
The First Afghan War, as historians now call it, was finally over. The British had received a terrible mauling, for all of Lord Ellenborough's pretences, including a massive victory celebration, that it had ended in triumph. But no amount of medal-giving, triumphal arches, regimental balls and other extravaganzas could conceal the final irony. No sooner had the British left Afghanistan than the blood began to flow once more. Within three months Shah Shujah's son had been overthrown, and Dost Mohammed was allowed by the British to return unconditionally to the throne from which he had removed at such terrible cost. No one had any doubt that he was the only man capable of restoring order to Afghanistan. Events had come full circle. p.277

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Aug 01, 2007 Jolifanta rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Swashbucking adventure in Central Asia. And it's all real history! From the Pashtuns to the Mongols, from the British to the Czar. This book is a traveler's adventure.

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Aug 24, 2012 Tim Inglisi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A highly readable account of imperial intrigue and high risk travel in a part of Asia that most of us know little about. Hopkirk manages to blend the heroism of high-minded gentlemen, loyal servants of the state and merchant adventurers without getting drawn into post-colonial angst over the strategic consequences. His scholarship shines through in his choice of quotations, incidents and examples. A topic such as this could have been quite fragmented if tackled with less care, but The Great Game...more

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Nov 16, 2010 James Murphy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This excellent history shows that Central Asia hasn't just recently become an important strategic region. Great powers have shown an appreciation for its importance for hundreds of years. It sits astride the landmass like the hub of a wheel with spokes radiating into the Russian hinterland, east Asia, India and the Indian Ocean, and the Arab lands around the Persian Gulf. The players today are different, but lines of power are still trying to move through the region while others seem to be tryin...more

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Jan 19, 2010 Elaine Nelson rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, non-fiction, politics, religion

One of the books recommended by the folks of Ask Metafilter, when I asked for books about the British in Afghanistan. Stupendous huge book chronicling about 100 years of conflict between the British and the Russians in Central Asia. A little overwhelming in the sheer mass of data, but fascinating nonetheless. Could have stood for more (or more readable) maps, or possibly a cast of characters section. Don't think I could pass a quiz on most of the details, but I have a pretty good sense of the br...more

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Oct 07, 2009 World Traveler rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a great book if you want to know about the history of the Central Asian region. The political struggles are still relevant today. However, it is really tedious to read because it is full of facts and names. It's not really a page turner. There's also nothing about modern day Central Asia. If you want to read a great fiction/thriller that accurately captures Uzbekistan's culture and people and presents the region through an entertaining story, read The Opportunists by Yohann de Silva. The ...more

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Aug 17, 2010 Kristen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book in college and remember that it was very hard to put down. Hopkirk portrays history clearly and makes it interesting to read. It really is like a game for control over different countries and territories. I tried to find this book in my libraries, but it is not part of the collection. If I ever come across it again, I would like to reread it. It gives an understanding of different cultures and the paths they have taken to get where they are today. It also helps to understand som...more

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Dec 04, 2010 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Great Game is the 300-hundred year struggle between Britain and Russia for hegemony in Central Asia, the gateway to India, the ultimate goal. Although the Russians didn’t make it to India, they acquired virtually all of Central Asia in the process, except Afghanistan which neither they nor the British managed to control for long, though tens of thousands of soldiers died trying. And so it remains today….ungoverned and ungovernable. We are wasting our time, our money, and the lives of young p...more

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Dec 04, 2009 Catherine Kealhofer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Immensely fun read by an old-school journalist. The book focuses on the stories of major British and Russian adventurers who tried to gather information and engineer local alliances in Central Asia, which was viewed as a possible gateway to an overland invasion of India. Given the current state of affairs, it's quite sobering to read of disastrous british attempts to install friendly governments in Afghanistan--failure due to a lack of understanding of tribal relationships as well as a general l...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Warwick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, empire, afghanistan, russia, iran, india, politics, raj, folio-society

I liked this a lot, although I think the relevance to events today has been overplayed a bit by some other reviewers: it's better enjoyed as a stirring history than a political primer.

I knew a little about the Great Game before – that 19th-century wrangling over Central Asia between Britain and Russia – but I hadn't appreciated before how motivated both sides were, in Britain's case because they feared encroachment on their ‘jewel of the Empire’, British India, and in Russia's case because they...more I liked this a lot, although I think the relevance to events today has been overplayed a bit by some other reviewers: it's better enjoyed as a stirring history than a political primer.

I knew a little about the Great Game before – that 19th-century wrangling over Central Asia between Britain and Russia – but I hadn't appreciated before how motivated both sides were, in Britain's case because they feared encroachment on their ‘jewel of the Empire’, British India, and in Russia's case because they were hell-bent on expanding their influence as far as possible. But the real joy here is in the Boy's-Own adventuring of some of the principal players – ambitious explorer-spies who headed off the map and into a world of mountain fortresses, Himalayan snowstorms, Russian ambushes, gruelling sieges, and daring gunfights. At stake was a barely-known network of independent city-states whose rulers were befriended, betrayed, and played off one another by the two major powers in an attempt to win influence and ascendancy in the area.

It would take a hard-hearted reader not to feel some pangs of awe and excitement at some of the derring-do here, however much you are made aware of the cynical political game-playing behind it all. Hopkirk tells his story engagingly, if occasionally dropping into some speculative scene-setting (‘As he donned a long quilted coat and black lambskin hat, the two men with him watched in silence’ – how do you know?). There are narrative problems – it covers a long period, and the book is necessarily somewhat episodic, with rather little of the political background filled in – but on the whole, the episodes are so extraordinary that it's hard to mind too much.

I'd be interested to see a update of some of this – when it came out the Soviet Union was still in place, and it would be good to know which previously-hidden records on the Russian side have now become available. Until then, it's a great primer on a fascinating period of imperial history.(less)

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Sep 23, 2012 Robert Clancy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

I am a student of British colonial history, especially the British rule of India in the 19th century. However, "The Great Game" by Peter Hopkirk helped fill-in my knowledge of facts and details concerning the century-plus jousting between Britain and Russia over the desolate recesses of Central Asia. The playing field was home to endless dangerous tribe, Emirites and Khanates in what is now Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and other remote lands. Both countries relied upon courag...more

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Sep 14, 2012 Jim Coughenour rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: armchairtravel, history

A fully satisfying popular history of the long struggle between the British and Russian empires during the 19th century. I won't summarize the content because others have already done a great job elsewhere on this page.

After reading Foreign Devils on the Silk Road and The Great Game, I'm now one of Hopkirk's many fans. I've already acquired his four other books and look forward to many more hours of leisurely reading, historical narrative as entertaining as fiction. As I've just started Kipling'...more

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