What do you think?
Rate this book
The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia
Hopkirk's spellbinding account of the great imperial struggle for supremacy in Central Asia has been hailed as essential reading with that era's legacy playing itself out today. The Great Game between Victorian Britain & Tsarist Russia was fought across desolate terrain from the Caucasus to China, over the lonely passes of the Parmirs & Karakorams, in the blazing Kerman & Helmund deserts, & thru the caravan towns of the old Silk Road-both powers scrambling to control access to the riches of India & the East. When play first began, the frontiers of Russia & British India lay 2000 miles apart; by the end, this distance had shrunk to 20 miles at some points. Now, in the vacuum left by the disintegration of the USSR, there's once again talk of Russian soldiers "dipping their toes in the Indian Ocean."
The Washington Post has said that "every story Peter Hopkirk touches is totally engrossing." In this gripping narrative he recounts a breathtaking tale of espionage & treachery thru the actual experiences of its colorful characters. Based on meticulous scholarship & on-the-spot research, this is the history at the core of today's geopolitics.
The Washington Post has said that "every story Peter Hopkirk touches is totally engrossing." In this gripping narrative he recounts a breathtaking tale of espionage & treachery thru the actual experiences of its colorful characters. Based on meticulous scholarship & on-the-spot research, this is the history at the core of today's geopolitics.
Audiobook
First published May 10, 1990
854 people are currently reading
17289 people want to read
About the author
Peter Hopkirk
20 books304 followersPeter Hopkirk was born in Nottingham, the son of Frank Stewart Hopkirk, a prison chaplain, and Mary Perkins. He grew up at Danbury, Essex, notable for the historic palace of the Bishop of Rochester. Hopkirk was educated at the Dragon School in Oxford. The family hailed originally from the borders of Scotland in Roxburghshire where there was a rich history of barbaric raids and reivers hanging justice. It must have resonated with his writings in the history of the lawless frontiers of the British Empire. From an early age he was interested in spy novels carrying around Buchan's Greenmantle and Kipling's Kim stories about India. At the Dragon he played rugby, and shot at Bisley.
Before turning full-time author, he was an ITN reporter and newscaster for two years, the New York City correspondent of Lord Beaverbrook's The Sunday Express, and then worked for nearly twenty years on The Times; five as its chief reporter, and latterly as a Middle East and Far East specialist. In the 1950s, he edited the West African news magazine Drum, sister paper to the South African Drum. Before entering Fleet Street, he served as a subaltern in the King's African Rifles in 1949 – in the same battalion as Lance-Corporal Idi Amin, later to emerge as a Ugandan tyrant.
Hopkirk travelled widely over many years in the regions where his six books are set – Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, and eastern Turkey.
He sought a life in dangerous situations as a journalist, being sent to Algeria to cover the revolutionary crisis in the French colonial administration. Inspired by Maclean's Eastern Approaches he began to think about the Far East. During the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961 he was based in New York covering the events for the Express. No stranger to misadventure, Hopkirk was twice arrested and held in secret police cells, once in Cuba, where he was accused of spying for the US Government. His contacts in Mexico obtained his release. In the Middle East, he was hijacked by Arab terrorists in Beirut, which led to his expulsion. The PLO hijacked his plane, a KLM jet bound for Amsterdam at the height of the economic oil crises in 1974. Hopkirk confronted them and persuaded the armed gang to surrender their weapons.
His works have been officially translated into fourteen languages, and unofficial versions in local languages are apt to appear in the bazaars of Central Asia. In 1999, he was awarded the Sir Percy Sykes Memorial Medal for his writing and travels by the Royal Society for Asian Affairs.[3] much of his research came from the India Office archives, British Library, St Pancras.
Hopkirk's wife Kathleen Partridge wrote A Traveller's Companion to Central Asia, published by John Murray in 1994 (ISBN 0-7195-5016-5).
Hopkirk died on 22 August 2014 at the age of 83.
Before turning full-time author, he was an ITN reporter and newscaster for two years, the New York City correspondent of Lord Beaverbrook's The Sunday Express, and then worked for nearly twenty years on The Times; five as its chief reporter, and latterly as a Middle East and Far East specialist. In the 1950s, he edited the West African news magazine Drum, sister paper to the South African Drum. Before entering Fleet Street, he served as a subaltern in the King's African Rifles in 1949 – in the same battalion as Lance-Corporal Idi Amin, later to emerge as a Ugandan tyrant.
Hopkirk travelled widely over many years in the regions where his six books are set – Russia, Central Asia, the Caucasus, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, and eastern Turkey.
He sought a life in dangerous situations as a journalist, being sent to Algeria to cover the revolutionary crisis in the French colonial administration. Inspired by Maclean's Eastern Approaches he began to think about the Far East. During the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961 he was based in New York covering the events for the Express. No stranger to misadventure, Hopkirk was twice arrested and held in secret police cells, once in Cuba, where he was accused of spying for the US Government. His contacts in Mexico obtained his release. In the Middle East, he was hijacked by Arab terrorists in Beirut, which led to his expulsion. The PLO hijacked his plane, a KLM jet bound for Amsterdam at the height of the economic oil crises in 1974. Hopkirk confronted them and persuaded the armed gang to surrender their weapons.
His works have been officially translated into fourteen languages, and unofficial versions in local languages are apt to appear in the bazaars of Central Asia. In 1999, he was awarded the Sir Percy Sykes Memorial Medal for his writing and travels by the Royal Society for Asian Affairs.[3] much of his research came from the India Office archives, British Library, St Pancras.
Hopkirk's wife Kathleen Partridge wrote A Traveller's Companion to Central Asia, published by John Murray in 1994 (ISBN 0-7195-5016-5).
Hopkirk died on 22 August 2014 at the age of 83.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 830 reviews
August 30, 2018
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 don't know why easterns aren't more popular.
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 don't know why easterns aren't more popular.
May 23, 2025
"When everyone is dead the Great Game is finished. Not before. Listen to me till the end".
- Rudyard Kipling, ‘Kim’ (1901)
************
In 1236 Mongol horsemen swept westward through Russia, tying serfs to the Tartar yoke. The Golden Horde would exact tribute until Ivan the Terrible had defeated the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan in the mid 1500'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 1735. In 1757 the British began major territorial gains in India. The aspirations and apprehensions of these rival European empires became the 'Great Game', played out over Central Asia during the 1800'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 1812 helped to end one concern but created another. Threat of a Russian attack on India, by way of Turkey and Tehran, obsessed the British, and a cold war Russophobia took hold. Tsar Alexander the First sent envoys to Khiva, in present day Uzbekistan, to make allies and secure forward positions. The British probed the 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 1830's. British intrigue in Kabul precipitated the disastrous Anglo-Afghan War of the 1840's. The 1850's Crimean War strained Russian relations with Britain. The 1860's US civil war raised Russian interests in Central Asian cotton, and Tashkent was taken. Soon Samarkand fell. Spies like Frederick Burnaby rode to Khiva in the 1870's. Britain controlled the Suez Canal in the 1880's, while Russia layed rails in Central Asia. The Russians invaded Afghanistan in the 1890's, as did the British in early 1900'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 1810. He later played a leading role in the Opium War, the Treaty of Nanking, and founding of Hong Kong. Alexander Burnes, who made an overland reconnaissance in 1831, traced the Indus River, crossed the Khyber Pass to Kabul and became famous during his lifetime for the memoir 'Travels Into Bukhara'.
Hopkirk was a late 20th century British writer and 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 straightforward, if somewhat oversimplified and given to cliches at times.
- Rudyard Kipling, ‘Kim’ (1901)
************
In 1236 Mongol horsemen swept westward through Russia, tying serfs to the Tartar yoke. The Golden Horde would exact tribute until Ivan the Terrible had defeated the khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan in the mid 1500'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 1735. In 1757 the British began major territorial gains in India. The aspirations and apprehensions of these rival European empires became the 'Great Game', played out over Central Asia during the 1800'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 1812 helped to end one concern but created another. Threat of a Russian attack on India, by way of Turkey and Tehran, obsessed the British, and a cold war Russophobia took hold. Tsar Alexander the First sent envoys to Khiva, in present day Uzbekistan, to make allies and secure forward positions. The British probed the 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 1830's. British intrigue in Kabul precipitated the disastrous Anglo-Afghan War of the 1840's. The 1850's Crimean War strained Russian relations with Britain. The 1860's US civil war raised Russian interests in Central Asian cotton, and Tashkent was taken. Soon Samarkand fell. Spies like Frederick Burnaby rode to Khiva in the 1870's. Britain controlled the Suez Canal in the 1880's, while Russia layed rails in Central Asia. The Russians invaded Afghanistan in the 1890's, as did the British in early 1900'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 1810. He later played a leading role in the Opium War, the Treaty of Nanking, and founding of Hong Kong. Alexander Burnes, who made an overland reconnaissance in 1831, traced the Indus River, crossed the Khyber Pass to Kabul and became famous during his lifetime for the memoir 'Travels Into Bukhara'.
Hopkirk was a late 20th century British writer and 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 straightforward, if somewhat oversimplified and given to cliches at times.
July 9, 2011
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 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.
September 3, 2025
Hopkirk's magnum opus 'The Great Game' feeds into his other books (some of which I have read), but ostensibly tells the big picture of Russia vs Britain in the fight for Central Asia throughout the 19th century to around 1907 when it concludes.
There are currently a little under 800 reviews on GR and a little over 8,800 ratings, with an average of 4.33 stars. There is likely little I can say about it that hasn't already been said.
My opinion, this exceeded expectations, as I have read my fair share of Central Asian history, mostly around the Great Game periods. Hopkirk has managed to keep it punchy, in short chapters, each covering a discrete aspect of the overall narrative. He makes the complex overlapping and confusing nature of this period into a cohesive and engaging narrative. The Khanates, the cities, the countries of Central Asia all evoke for me a sense of wonder and mystery - unrealistic I am sure, but nevertheless I find it a fascinating history.
There is perhaps an aspect of balance missing - the British certainly are described far more positively than their opponent. The vast amount of records and information on the British version of events likely contributes to this, with much of the Russian information never made public, so that perhaps tips the balance in what can be accurately described by Hopkirk, but even so with the British agents brave and ingenious, the Russians skulking in the lawless steppe, the savage Afghans, etc it is certainly British-centric in its view.
One pertinent quote from the last page of the book brings into focus how much of a Russian and British story this is, and how little say those effected by the Great Game had. (From 1990 when published)
One worrying aspect is the massive bibliography and Hopkirk calling out some particularly interesting looking books which do nothing for my ever expanding to read list!
There are other great reviews which summarise events which I can't begin to frame!
For me 5 stars.
There are currently a little under 800 reviews on GR and a little over 8,800 ratings, with an average of 4.33 stars. There is likely little I can say about it that hasn't already been said.
My opinion, this exceeded expectations, as I have read my fair share of Central Asian history, mostly around the Great Game periods. Hopkirk has managed to keep it punchy, in short chapters, each covering a discrete aspect of the overall narrative. He makes the complex overlapping and confusing nature of this period into a cohesive and engaging narrative. The Khanates, the cities, the countries of Central Asia all evoke for me a sense of wonder and mystery - unrealistic I am sure, but nevertheless I find it a fascinating history.
There is perhaps an aspect of balance missing - the British certainly are described far more positively than their opponent. The vast amount of records and information on the British version of events likely contributes to this, with much of the Russian information never made public, so that perhaps tips the balance in what can be accurately described by Hopkirk, but even so with the British agents brave and ingenious, the Russians skulking in the lawless steppe, the savage Afghans, etc it is certainly British-centric in its view.
One pertinent quote from the last page of the book brings into focus how much of a Russian and British story this is, and how little say those effected by the Great Game had. (From 1990 when published)
As for the Indians themselves, they were neither consulted nor considered in any of this. Yet, like their Muslim neighbours across the frontier, it was largely their blood which was spilt during the imperial struggle. All they ever wanted was to be left alone, something they achieved in 1947, when the British packed their bags and departed. But the peoples of Central Asia were less fortunate at their conquerors’ hands. For more than a century now the vast Russian empire there has served as a monument to the Tsarist heroes of the Great Game. How much longer it will continue to do so, in view of the violent turmoil threatening the Soviet Union, is impossible to forecast.
One worrying aspect is the massive bibliography and Hopkirk calling out some particularly interesting looking books which do nothing for my ever expanding to read list!
There are other great reviews which summarise events which I can't begin to frame!
For me 5 stars.
June 29, 2013
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 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 ever wanted to learn something about this large and remote area then this is the book to start with. 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. I would rate this book one of the better ones I have read covering this subject & period.
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 ever wanted to learn something about this large and remote area then this is the book to start with. 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. I would rate this book one of the better ones I have read covering this subject & period.
December 19, 2021
کتاب بازی بزرگ نوشته پیتر هاپکرک روایت ماجراجویانی ایست که در قرن نوزده ، زمانی که کویرها ، بیابان ها ، کوه ها و رودها و تنگه ها همچنان معابر غیر قابل عبوری بودند از خانه و شهر و دیار و زندگی خود گذشتند تا به قول نویسنده شکاف هایی در نقشه جغرافیا را پر کنند یا آنگونه که دولت های استعماری روسیه و انگلستان می انگاشتند تمدن را به شرق وحشی بیا آورند و یا آنگونه که ما در شرق فکر می کنیم آنها آمده بودند تا زمینه مستعمره شدن شرق به دست غرب را فراهم کنند .
این کتاب زمان تقریبا یکصد ساله از اوایل قرن نوزده را در بر می گیرد ، هنگامی که منافع انگلستان به عنوان قدرت مستقر توسط امپراتوری روسیه به عنوان قدرت در حال ظهور به شدت تهدید می شود و آسیا از قفقاز ، ایران ، آسیای مرکزی ، افغانستان و غرب چین یا ترکستان صحنه جدال این دو قدرت می گردد ، مناقطی که اگر چه همسایه گان روسیه بودند اما هزاران کیلومتر از انگلستان فاصله داشتند .
حقیقت آن است که غارت و استعمار هندوستان به اندازه ای برای انگلستان سود آور وحیاتی بوده که ملکه ، دولت و احتمالا ملت انگلستان که کوچکترین تهدیدی برای آنرا تحمل نمی کردند و روسیه از سوی دیگر تلاش داشت با محاصره و در نهایت فتح هند ، علاوه بر زدن ضربه ای مهلک به بریتانیا ، بازار بزرگی برای محصولات خود هم بدست آورد .
در این هنگام است که صدها ، افسر و مامور اطلاعاتی و یا نظامی انگلیسی و البته دهها نفر هم از روسیه با پذیرش ریسک جانی بسیار بالا ، معمولا با ظاهری مبدل و تغییر شکل داده شده به افغانستان ، ازبکستان و قرقیزستان یا تبت فعلی سرازیر شدند که با مذاکره یا خریدن خوانین یا روسای ایلات و یا حکام شهرهای مهمی همانند خیوه ، تاشکند ، هرات ، قندهار ، لهاسا ، کاشغر با طلا و یا در صورت لزوم عوض کردن آنان با افراد وابسته به خود منافع کشورهای خود را البته زیر شعار بسیار سطحی متمدن کردن وحشی ها تامین کنند و البته تا جای ممکن هم به رقیب خود چه انگلستان ، چه روسیه ضربه بزنند .
روشن است که در این بازی که غربی ها بزرگ و ما در شرق آنرا کثیف می دانیم ، انگلستان به دلیل داشتن پول و طلا ، نیروی دریایی برتر و احتمالا قدرت فریبکاری و مکر بیشتر در این رقابت که سرنوشت ملتها ، قوم ها و مرزها را تعیین می کرد دست بالاتررا داشت .
شوربختانه تصویری که نویسنده از جهل و بی خبری حاکمان در شرق نشان داده بسیار واقعی ایست ، یک نمونه ملموس برای ما ایرانیان فتحعلی شاه است که به سفیر انگلستان پیشنهاد داده بود از زیر دریا کانالی به سمت ینگه دنیا حفر کنند اما در مقابل استبداد مخوف شرق ، انگلیسها در درجه نخست و سپس روسها آگاه از دانش روز ، جغرافیا منطقه ، زبان های محلی و دارای سلاح های پیشرفته ای بودند که نمونه آن در شرق پیدا نمی شد ، در پایان قدرت انگلستان میان هند و مرزهای روسیه منطقه حائلی را ایجاد کرد که رهبران آن متمایل به انگلستان بودند .
نویسنده کتاب پایان بازی کثیف را قدرت گرفتن ژاپن در شرق و مجموعه عواملی دانسته که در پایان منجر به سقوط امپراتوری روسها و واگذار شدن کل منطقه به انگلستان شد . پیتر هاپکرک اگر چه در کتاب بارها از ایران نام برده و ایران دو بار در حمله به هرات در زمان محمد شاه و سپس ناصرالدین شاه تهدیدی بسیار خطرناک برای هند بوده ، اما ایران نقش کلیدی در کتاب نداشته و افغانستان ، ترکمنستان ، ازبکستان و قزقیزستان بیشتر مورد توجه نویسنده در این رقابت خونین بوده است اما سرپرسی سایکس در کتاب ایران در بازی بزرگ ( که من هنوز آنرا پیدا نکرده ام) به صورت خاص به نقش ایران پرداخته است .
در پایان کتاب بازی بزرگ با وجود تمایلات آشکار نویسنده به کشور خود انگلستان ، تلاش آقای هاپکرک در روایت تاریخ از زاویه کمتر شنیده شده ، تلاشی نسبتا موفق بوده است .
این کتاب زمان تقریبا یکصد ساله از اوایل قرن نوزده را در بر می گیرد ، هنگامی که منافع انگلستان به عنوان قدرت مستقر توسط امپراتوری روسیه به عنوان قدرت در حال ظهور به شدت تهدید می شود و آسیا از قفقاز ، ایران ، آسیای مرکزی ، افغانستان و غرب چین یا ترکستان صحنه جدال این دو قدرت می گردد ، مناقطی که اگر چه همسایه گان روسیه بودند اما هزاران کیلومتر از انگلستان فاصله داشتند .
حقیقت آن است که غارت و استعمار هندوستان به اندازه ای برای انگلستان سود آور وحیاتی بوده که ملکه ، دولت و احتمالا ملت انگلستان که کوچکترین تهدیدی برای آنرا تحمل نمی کردند و روسیه از سوی دیگر تلاش داشت با محاصره و در نهایت فتح هند ، علاوه بر زدن ضربه ای مهلک به بریتانیا ، بازار بزرگی برای محصولات خود هم بدست آورد .
در این هنگام است که صدها ، افسر و مامور اطلاعاتی و یا نظامی انگلیسی و البته دهها نفر هم از روسیه با پذیرش ریسک جانی بسیار بالا ، معمولا با ظاهری مبدل و تغییر شکل داده شده به افغانستان ، ازبکستان و قرقیزستان یا تبت فعلی سرازیر شدند که با مذاکره یا خریدن خوانین یا روسای ایلات و یا حکام شهرهای مهمی همانند خیوه ، تاشکند ، هرات ، قندهار ، لهاسا ، کاشغر با طلا و یا در صورت لزوم عوض کردن آنان با افراد وابسته به خود منافع کشورهای خود را البته زیر شعار بسیار سطحی متمدن کردن وحشی ها تامین کنند و البته تا جای ممکن هم به رقیب خود چه انگلستان ، چه روسیه ضربه بزنند .
روشن است که در این بازی که غربی ها بزرگ و ما در شرق آنرا کثیف می دانیم ، انگلستان به دلیل داشتن پول و طلا ، نیروی دریایی برتر و احتمالا قدرت فریبکاری و مکر بیشتر در این رقابت که سرنوشت ملتها ، قوم ها و مرزها را تعیین می کرد دست بالاتررا داشت .
شوربختانه تصویری که نویسنده از جهل و بی خبری حاکمان در شرق نشان داده بسیار واقعی ایست ، یک نمونه ملموس برای ما ایرانیان فتحعلی شاه است که به سفیر انگلستان پیشنهاد داده بود از زیر دریا کانالی به سمت ینگه دنیا حفر کنند اما در مقابل استبداد مخوف شرق ، انگلیسها در درجه نخست و سپس روسها آگاه از دانش روز ، جغرافیا منطقه ، زبان های محلی و دارای سلاح های پیشرفته ای بودند که نمونه آن در شرق پیدا نمی شد ، در پایان قدرت انگلستان میان هند و مرزهای روسیه منطقه حائلی را ایجاد کرد که رهبران آن متمایل به انگلستان بودند .
نویسنده کتاب پایان بازی کثیف را قدرت گرفتن ژاپن در شرق و مجموعه عواملی دانسته که در پایان منجر به سقوط امپراتوری روسها و واگذار شدن کل منطقه به انگلستان شد . پیتر هاپکرک اگر چه در کتاب بارها از ایران نام برده و ایران دو بار در حمله به هرات در زمان محمد شاه و سپس ناصرالدین شاه تهدیدی بسیار خطرناک برای هند بوده ، اما ایران نقش کلیدی در کتاب نداشته و افغانستان ، ترکمنستان ، ازبکستان و قزقیزستان بیشتر مورد توجه نویسنده در این رقابت خونین بوده است اما سرپرسی سایکس در کتاب ایران در بازی بزرگ ( که من هنوز آنرا پیدا نکرده ام) به صورت خاص به نقش ایران پرداخته است .
در پایان کتاب بازی بزرگ با وجود تمایلات آشکار نویسنده به کشور خود انگلستان ، تلاش آقای هاپکرک در روایت تاریخ از زاویه کمتر شنیده شده ، تلاشی نسبتا موفق بوده است .
April 6, 2018
Dove vai caro? "In Kashgaria"
A un tenente inglese, di stanza in una guarnigione indiana viene concessa una licenza. Va a trovare Jane? Al mare? Al capezzale della prozia? Si iscrive al torneo di bridge? No. Dice più o meno, "vado a mappare il Tagikistan". Ma se nessuno sa nemmeno dove sia?!? Appunto. E parte.
Nel viaggio incontra una Città, governata da un ferocissimo Khan, ma sfugge e riesce ad inviare un messaggio dove segnala che il Conte Klimoff è passato di là. Sospettando intrighi di Pietroburgo, il governatore decide di inviare una spedizione, di Gurkha naturalmente, che comandata da un altro inglese vada in ricognizione ed in soccorso. Ma devono attraversare il territorio di un Emiro, ostile e traditore che li vende come schiavi. Nel mentre il Maragià (il Maragià!) cui le spie avevano informato dell'affronto pericoloso, per dissipare dubbi sulla sua condotta, attraverso un passo segreto, (si! c'erano passi segreti) fa affluire truppe che liberano, coll'aiuto del Khan del Kashmir... eccetera.
Seicento pagine di avventura. Missioni terrificanti, massacri da vendicare, piste innevate, cannoni trascinati a quattromila metri, deserti e fortezze di creta, Russi, Cinesi, Inglesi e loro alleati si incontrano e scontrano per contendersi terre che allora erano ignote ai contendenti stessi.
Naturalmente nel mentre all'ambasciatore viene notificato che un un ferocissimo nomade, Yakoob Beg, è andato a prendersi la Kashgaria.
Riprendiamocela! Già arrivarci è un impresa, e poi i cinesi hanno inviato un esercito che ci metterà tre anni perché vive nel frattempo di ciò che semina nel tragitto (!) ma arriverà.
La pattuglia smarrita, gli attaché rapiti, la spedizione di soccorso, e perfino la moglie di un sergente che scappa col suo carceriere afghano che diserta.
Ogni capitolo contiene avventure che fanno sembrare il Signore degli Anelli un libro noiosissimo, intrighi da "i Misteri dei Gonzaga", tradimenti e torture da "Conte di Montecristo", e che se sviluppate sarebbero tranquillamente una scaletta per un buon romanzo anche oggi, romanzo che non si scrive preferendosi sfraganare i cabbasisi nostri colla solita menata familiare, da Roccasecca al Wisconsin.
Ed è tutto vero.
L'autore, ex diplomatico, ha scritto un testo documentatissimo, correlato di doveroso indice dei nomi e sterminata impressionante bibliografia (circa come una media biblioteca). Non meraviglia, che i resoconti allora stampati a Londra, diventassero bestseller in pochi giorni. Il loro tenore, documentato, è tale da far riclassificare l'intera opera Salgariana come plausibile. Qui di gente che compie imprese possibili solo a Yanez o Sandokan, se ne trovano decine.
Ah, attenzione alle cartine, spesso non sono traslitterate come d'uso in italiano, frugate su internet e saprete dove cappero è quella città sede del terrificante crudelissimo Emiro.
Un esempio. Questa mappa, dove il Pamir sono pochi tratteggi malposti, prima di dire che fa schifo, sappiate che è desunta dal rapporto di uno dei personaggi, un inglese. Se l'è fatto a piedi. Non il Pamir, ANCHE il Pamir. Prima di lui non c'era nulla.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~vika/c...
Colonna sonora: Miles Davis (Jack DeJohnette, Lenny White, Don Alias, Juma Santos, Wayne Shorter, Bennie Maupin, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Larry Young, Dave Holland, Harvey Brooks, John McLaughlin), Bitches Brew, legacy edition 3cd.
PS, qualcuno obietta che il testo è filobritannico quindi russofobo.
Annotando cosa accade alle virilissime truppe russe nei guai solitamente compare "morte", così come "soccorse" nelle stesse condizioni si applica alle vicende delle "effeminate" truppe inglesi, così spesso definiti dai barbari locali.
Pur dando preminenza ai connazionali, gli inglesi non erano soliti abbandonare sikh, gurkha o altri pandit addestrati alla bisogna, quando il cosacco disperso è quasi la norma. Se l'India - liberatasi dal pesante giogo inglese - ha continuato a mandare lo stesso per decenni i suoi figli brillanti nei college, non a Mosca, men che meno a Taskent, qualcosa evidentemente hanno lasciato; e se ora non li mandano più è perché hanno ora ottime università pure loro, sul modello british naturalmente. Modello che oggi ha le sue brave crepe, è di pochi mesi fa la notizia che autorità inglesi, prive del minimo di intuizione necessario per sopravvivere, adducendo cavilli burocratici, hanno discriminato nei diritti alla pensione qualche migliaio di Gurkha.
A un tenente inglese, di stanza in una guarnigione indiana viene concessa una licenza. Va a trovare Jane? Al mare? Al capezzale della prozia? Si iscrive al torneo di bridge? No. Dice più o meno, "vado a mappare il Tagikistan". Ma se nessuno sa nemmeno dove sia?!? Appunto. E parte.
Nel viaggio incontra una Città, governata da un ferocissimo Khan, ma sfugge e riesce ad inviare un messaggio dove segnala che il Conte Klimoff è passato di là. Sospettando intrighi di Pietroburgo, il governatore decide di inviare una spedizione, di Gurkha naturalmente, che comandata da un altro inglese vada in ricognizione ed in soccorso. Ma devono attraversare il territorio di un Emiro, ostile e traditore che li vende come schiavi. Nel mentre il Maragià (il Maragià!) cui le spie avevano informato dell'affronto pericoloso, per dissipare dubbi sulla sua condotta, attraverso un passo segreto, (si! c'erano passi segreti) fa affluire truppe che liberano, coll'aiuto del Khan del Kashmir... eccetera.
Seicento pagine di avventura. Missioni terrificanti, massacri da vendicare, piste innevate, cannoni trascinati a quattromila metri, deserti e fortezze di creta, Russi, Cinesi, Inglesi e loro alleati si incontrano e scontrano per contendersi terre che allora erano ignote ai contendenti stessi.
Naturalmente nel mentre all'ambasciatore viene notificato che un un ferocissimo nomade, Yakoob Beg, è andato a prendersi la Kashgaria.
Riprendiamocela! Già arrivarci è un impresa, e poi i cinesi hanno inviato un esercito che ci metterà tre anni perché vive nel frattempo di ciò che semina nel tragitto (!) ma arriverà.
La pattuglia smarrita, gli attaché rapiti, la spedizione di soccorso, e perfino la moglie di un sergente che scappa col suo carceriere afghano che diserta.
Ogni capitolo contiene avventure che fanno sembrare il Signore degli Anelli un libro noiosissimo, intrighi da "i Misteri dei Gonzaga", tradimenti e torture da "Conte di Montecristo", e che se sviluppate sarebbero tranquillamente una scaletta per un buon romanzo anche oggi, romanzo che non si scrive preferendosi sfraganare i cabbasisi nostri colla solita menata familiare, da Roccasecca al Wisconsin.
Ed è tutto vero.
L'autore, ex diplomatico, ha scritto un testo documentatissimo, correlato di doveroso indice dei nomi e sterminata impressionante bibliografia (circa come una media biblioteca). Non meraviglia, che i resoconti allora stampati a Londra, diventassero bestseller in pochi giorni. Il loro tenore, documentato, è tale da far riclassificare l'intera opera Salgariana come plausibile. Qui di gente che compie imprese possibili solo a Yanez o Sandokan, se ne trovano decine.
Ah, attenzione alle cartine, spesso non sono traslitterate come d'uso in italiano, frugate su internet e saprete dove cappero è quella città sede del terrificante crudelissimo Emiro.
Un esempio. Questa mappa, dove il Pamir sono pochi tratteggi malposti, prima di dire che fa schifo, sappiate che è desunta dal rapporto di uno dei personaggi, un inglese. Se l'è fatto a piedi. Non il Pamir, ANCHE il Pamir. Prima di lui non c'era nulla.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~vika/c...
Colonna sonora: Miles Davis (Jack DeJohnette, Lenny White, Don Alias, Juma Santos, Wayne Shorter, Bennie Maupin, Chick Corea, Joe Zawinul, Larry Young, Dave Holland, Harvey Brooks, John McLaughlin), Bitches Brew, legacy edition 3cd.
PS, qualcuno obietta che il testo è filobritannico quindi russofobo.
Annotando cosa accade alle virilissime truppe russe nei guai solitamente compare "morte", così come "soccorse" nelle stesse condizioni si applica alle vicende delle "effeminate" truppe inglesi, così spesso definiti dai barbari locali.
Pur dando preminenza ai connazionali, gli inglesi non erano soliti abbandonare sikh, gurkha o altri pandit addestrati alla bisogna, quando il cosacco disperso è quasi la norma. Se l'India - liberatasi dal pesante giogo inglese - ha continuato a mandare lo stesso per decenni i suoi figli brillanti nei college, non a Mosca, men che meno a Taskent, qualcosa evidentemente hanno lasciato; e se ora non li mandano più è perché hanno ora ottime università pure loro, sul modello british naturalmente. Modello che oggi ha le sue brave crepe, è di pochi mesi fa la notizia che autorità inglesi, prive del minimo di intuizione necessario per sopravvivere, adducendo cavilli burocratici, hanno discriminato nei diritti alla pensione qualche migliaio di Gurkha.
April 6, 2023
There are hundreds of reviews that will tell you all. I, therefore, shall just say it’s a book that I will, without doubt, read three or fours times before I’m done with it.
There is just so much in here.
I was taken to place that I had never imagined, where the goings on are unimaginable.
Kabul was seen as a paradise.
It’s a history book written as a thriller.
I imagine the author must be awfully well versed in ‘the game’ to enable him the ability to write this jewel with the pen of a novelist.
I sat in bed with cups of coffee: I did not want to put this down.
Places. People. Heroes. Feats of bravery, duplicity, compassion, cunning.
I will be reading more of Mr Hopkirk’s works and then come back and read this again.
Thank you, Mary, for tipping me the wink.
There is just so much in here.
I was taken to place that I had never imagined, where the goings on are unimaginable.
Kabul was seen as a paradise.
It’s a history book written as a thriller.
I imagine the author must be awfully well versed in ‘the game’ to enable him the ability to write this jewel with the pen of a novelist.
I sat in bed with cups of coffee: I did not want to put this down.
Places. People. Heroes. Feats of bravery, duplicity, compassion, cunning.
I will be reading more of Mr Hopkirk’s works and then come back and read this again.
Thank you, Mary, for tipping me the wink.
July 8, 2017
In The Great Game, Peter Hopkirk has reported a lot of history with just enough analysis. Strongly recommended for both the serious student of history and the more general reader looking to get a foundation in a complicated and often ignored portion of world history. My caution is that it is too easy to think of this period as a mirror of or direct predictor of what is now happening in Afghanistan, Pakistan and neighboring areas.
The Great Game constitutes my second attempt to build a background on a region described as the Top of the World. The prior read Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asiawhile good enough in its way is a distinct second place to The Great Game. What makes Hopkirk the better historian of this period is that he has stripped away the biographical material and focused on events and motives. In other words less about who the individuals were and more about what specifically Russia and Great Briton were doing and what they hoped to accomplish.
Russia depending on the period was engaged in
1. What might be thought of as Russia’s version of Manifest Destiny. From a Russian point of view, the natural boundaries of Russia could include everything east of the Caucuses all the way to the Pacific (At one point Russia had active control of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest south into California) curbed only by whatever parts of India that England failed to hold and as much of China as she failed to hold.
2. The place where aggressive military officers could demonstrate their fitness for higher station and bigger titles. That is the Imperial Court could be counted upon to reward success and deny failure. The gold is for the winner as long as he takes all the risks
3. Part of a vague and almost legendary belief that Russia was destined to rule the world.
The other recognized partner in The Great Game was Great Briton. Her situation was relatively simple.
1. Protect existing holdings from real and perceived threat by Imperial Russia.
2. Combine intelligence activity to understand the routes a Russian invasion might take, with developing client states friendly to Great Briton.
What the Great Game fails to analyze is the thinking and interests of the many peoples who would fight against, ally with or otherwise own all of the ground that the two recognized powers would invade, fight over or otherwise manipulate in favor of goals rarely consistent with the culture or needs of the peoples who were already there.
The absence of this third/fourth/however many points of view leads me to caution readers against thinking that with this book they can speak definitively about the challenges Soviet Russia failed to overcome in the end of their empire; or the reasons why the American Invasion had to last as long as it has while being careful about purposes and minimal goals.
Hopkirk will often remind us that this or that Mongol or Turkoman leader was born to intrigue and treachery. He is clear that religion, especially the Muslim religion was an important part of why the Europeans were unwelcome and violently resisted. There is a wonderful description of the arrival of a Muslim party in a Russian village. They are appalled at the visibility of Russian women and offended by the presence of and apparent worship of the idols (Icons) in Russian Churches. Hopkirk is also quick to contrast the deliberate attempts to remain remote by the leadership and peoples in what are now famous tourist places like Herat or Tibet.
There are so many details missing. Nationalism and religion continue to render Europeans, especially their military as automatically to be resisted. In many of these cultures, raiding remains a part of what people do. Complete with family owned and handed down ambush positions. Villages can be situated so as to control entrance/exit for military purposes, even at the cost of commercial traffic.
The Great Game is excellent at the history it does relate. The political and military motives, moves and thinking of England and Russia are well told. By design the many local peoples are not the purpose of this history. It is this part of the story that is most critical to a modern reader looking for historic answers to questions relating to modern regional geopolitics.
The Great Game constitutes my second attempt to build a background on a region described as the Top of the World. The prior read Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asiawhile good enough in its way is a distinct second place to The Great Game. What makes Hopkirk the better historian of this period is that he has stripped away the biographical material and focused on events and motives. In other words less about who the individuals were and more about what specifically Russia and Great Briton were doing and what they hoped to accomplish.
Russia depending on the period was engaged in
1. What might be thought of as Russia’s version of Manifest Destiny. From a Russian point of view, the natural boundaries of Russia could include everything east of the Caucuses all the way to the Pacific (At one point Russia had active control of Alaska and the Pacific Northwest south into California) curbed only by whatever parts of India that England failed to hold and as much of China as she failed to hold.
2. The place where aggressive military officers could demonstrate their fitness for higher station and bigger titles. That is the Imperial Court could be counted upon to reward success and deny failure. The gold is for the winner as long as he takes all the risks
3. Part of a vague and almost legendary belief that Russia was destined to rule the world.
The other recognized partner in The Great Game was Great Briton. Her situation was relatively simple.
1. Protect existing holdings from real and perceived threat by Imperial Russia.
2. Combine intelligence activity to understand the routes a Russian invasion might take, with developing client states friendly to Great Briton.
What the Great Game fails to analyze is the thinking and interests of the many peoples who would fight against, ally with or otherwise own all of the ground that the two recognized powers would invade, fight over or otherwise manipulate in favor of goals rarely consistent with the culture or needs of the peoples who were already there.
The absence of this third/fourth/however many points of view leads me to caution readers against thinking that with this book they can speak definitively about the challenges Soviet Russia failed to overcome in the end of their empire; or the reasons why the American Invasion had to last as long as it has while being careful about purposes and minimal goals.
Hopkirk will often remind us that this or that Mongol or Turkoman leader was born to intrigue and treachery. He is clear that religion, especially the Muslim religion was an important part of why the Europeans were unwelcome and violently resisted. There is a wonderful description of the arrival of a Muslim party in a Russian village. They are appalled at the visibility of Russian women and offended by the presence of and apparent worship of the idols (Icons) in Russian Churches. Hopkirk is also quick to contrast the deliberate attempts to remain remote by the leadership and peoples in what are now famous tourist places like Herat or Tibet.
There are so many details missing. Nationalism and religion continue to render Europeans, especially their military as automatically to be resisted. In many of these cultures, raiding remains a part of what people do. Complete with family owned and handed down ambush positions. Villages can be situated so as to control entrance/exit for military purposes, even at the cost of commercial traffic.
The Great Game is excellent at the history it does relate. The political and military motives, moves and thinking of England and Russia are well told. By design the many local peoples are not the purpose of this history. It is this part of the story that is most critical to a modern reader looking for historic answers to questions relating to modern regional geopolitics.
September 11, 2020
A Kazalinsk fu ricevuto dagli ufficiali russi, i quali, pur riservandogli un'accoglienza calorosa, lo informarono che non vedevano l'ora di battersi con gli inglesi per il possesso dell'India. "Ci spareremo addosso a vicenda la mattina" gli disse uno, porgendogli un bicchiere di vodka "e berremo insieme durante la tregua".
Cronaca storicamente impeccabile (la corposa bibliografia lo dimostra) del risiko intercorso tra le due grandi potenze imperialiste - russa e britannica - nel corso del XIX sec per accaparrarsi la supremazia in Asia Centrale. Azioni palesi e missioni segrete, politica e commercio e esplorazioni geografiche e cartografiche, colpi di fortuna ed errori madornali. L'autore dichiara apertamente di volersi concentrare sui personaggi più in vista del periodo per rendere la sua cronaca il più scorrevole possibile, e bisogna rendergli il merito di essere riuscito a restituire la realtà storica dei fatti nella misura più romanzesca e più avvincente possibile che gli era concessa, stando alla premessa di non volere inventare e non volere fare fiction in alcun modo. Ma qui sta anche l'inghippo: fermandosi ai dati e ai fatti e alle parole documentati, i protagonisti delle vicende finiscono per assomigliarsi un po' tutti e il lettore (o per lo meno io lettrice) finisce per confonderli tra loro: tutti egualmente intelligenti, intraprendenti, impavidi, ambiziosi, aitanti, affascinanti, colti, poliglotti, sicuri di sé e con la carriera assicurata. Se solo avessero avuto una qualche seppur minima caratterizzazione in più, un qualche minimo difetto, anche se inquinata da una minima misura di fantasia, l'opera ne avrebbe guadagnato enormemente.
Stesso discorso per le descrizioni dei luoghi, descrizioni di cui si sente fortemente la mancanza. I protagonisti attraversano migliaia e migliaia di chilometri di deserto, giungono in oasi che definire magiche sarebbe poca cosa, ma Hopkirk non concede il lusso non dico di una descrizione o di una istantanea sfuocata, ma nemmeno di una congettura. Il lettore lo sa di suo, per forza di logica, che i luoghi visitati dai protagonisti non sono tutti uguali, eppure la percezione immediata che si ricava da tale tipo di narrazione è - purtroppo - proprio quella: personaggi tutti uguali in luoghi tutti uguali. Solo verso il finale, qualche breve suggestione a proposito di Lhasa e qualche vaga descrizione di Chitral, hanno il sapore della beffa proprio perché tardive.
Da un lato ne ammiro la coerenza, sempre preciso, documentato, sempre saldo nel suo intento di non inventare nulla, eppure Hopkirk proprio a causa di questi suoi buoni propositi si rende in alcuni passaggi comicamente sbrigativo o goffamente approssimativo.
Nonostante la montagna di difetti, si legge veramente di gusto. Considerata la montagna di difetti non è altro (cito, anzi ricopio @Savasandir) "che il novero delle audaci imprese dei più temerari e spregiudicati uomini del tempo". A voler approfondire il discorso, l'essere temerari, testardi e spregiudicati è un qualcosa che ha anche lati negativi e non solo eroicamente e romanticamente positivi. A tratti mi sono trovata a pensare che queste schiere di avventurieri, militari, politici, diplomatici, sebbene ci vengano proposte da Hopkirk come figure altamente romantiche, in verità siano quanto di più vicino ci possa essere alla odierna figura del faccendiere, che un po' agisce per conto dell'uno, un po' per conto dell'altro, un po' per conto proprio, si intrufola, carpisce informazioni, con un po' di blandizie o con un po' di scambi di doni, viscido come un'anguilla e trasformista come un camaleonte. Eppure, dicevo, per quanto si accumulino premesse negative e osservazioni di difetti, la lettura si porta avanti con un piacere sempre costante: forse è solo per via del fatto che la mente del lettore, in background, è quasi obbligata a ricrearsi da sola quella dose di suggestione che l'autore proprio non vuole concedergli per iscritto. Come quando uno si ciba solo di alimenti dietetici e sconditi, e poi intanto il corpo produce colesterolo di suo, anche se non si sa bene da dove lo tiri fuori.
Uno dei lati positivi della ricostruzione fedele e documentata è nel poter quasi toccare con mano l'eleganza dei modi di questi ufficiali che sanno di doversi scannare il giorno successivo, ma il giorno prima conversano amabilmente e si offrono a vicenda il pranzo e la cena. Una certa cavalleria ed eleganza sono veramente morte e sepolte con il XIX sec., spariti la grazia e il garbo oggi ci restano solo fanatismo e ipocrisia.
In diversi definiscono il libro filobritannico e quindi anti-russo se non addirittura russofobo. Io non l'ho sentito in questo modo. E' filobritannico dal momento in cui l'autore britannico predilige le fonti britanniche, questo sì, ma non c'è sbilanciamento nel voler far apparire sotto una luce migliore questi rispetto a quelli. E' anche vero che in qualche passo vengono definiti "eroici" dei personaggi inglesi che, almeno stando al racconto, dal vero eroismo restano piuttosto distanti; ma ad ogni modo le disfatte inglesi, quando sono causate da vergognosi errori e scandalose titubanze, vengono presentate senza nessun tentativo di addolcire l'amaro della pillola. Le spedizioni catastrofiche, tutto sommato, vengono descritte utilizzando gli stessi aggettivi, sia che si tratti di spedizioni inglesi, sia che si tratti di spedizioni russe. Casomai è un po' comica l'ammirazione che si percepisce, tra le righe, da parte dell'autore nei confronti dei falchi e degli "arcirussofobi" della politica britannica dell'epoca. Ma che sia russofobo lui stesso, questo non lo direi, e nemmeno che sia privo di obiettività, viste e considerate le riflessioni del finale.
Essendo l'opera più un saggio che un romanzo, il finale avrebbe dovuto contemplare una qualche riflessione più approfondita circa il significato e le conseguenze di un risiko durato oltre un secolo. Ma invece di approfondire, Hopkirk sceglie di lasciare il lettore vis-à-vis con un dilemma, un autentico dubbio amletico (ed è una scelta che tutto sommato non mi dispiace, suona come un finale aperto): le popolazioni dei paesi soggetti all'imperialismo dell'una e dell'altra parte, che mai sono state consultate e mai figurano come parti in causa in maniera attiva ma sempre e solo passiva, sul fonte inglese hanno avuto infine ciò che veramente volevano, e cioè starsene in pace, dal momento in cui hanno avuto l'indipendenza nel '47, mentre sul fronte russo l'imperialismo non ha mai avuto una vera e propria fine. Hopkirk fa questa osservazione grossomodo corretta e poi, con un doppio carpiato all'indietro, afferma che gli "eroi" dell'impero russo hanno in fin dei conti avuto il loro monumento, la loro morte non è stata vana dal momento in cui i territori per la cui conquista essi hanno lottato, sono tutt'oggi sotto la sfera di influenza della loro patria; e invece al contrario gli "eroi" britannici hanno visto vanificato il proprio sacrificio proprio in virtù di quell'indipendenza citata dianzi. E così, si resta con il dubbio: meglio essere o non essere? Meglio zuppa o pan bagnato?
Cronaca storicamente impeccabile (la corposa bibliografia lo dimostra) del risiko intercorso tra le due grandi potenze imperialiste - russa e britannica - nel corso del XIX sec per accaparrarsi la supremazia in Asia Centrale. Azioni palesi e missioni segrete, politica e commercio e esplorazioni geografiche e cartografiche, colpi di fortuna ed errori madornali. L'autore dichiara apertamente di volersi concentrare sui personaggi più in vista del periodo per rendere la sua cronaca il più scorrevole possibile, e bisogna rendergli il merito di essere riuscito a restituire la realtà storica dei fatti nella misura più romanzesca e più avvincente possibile che gli era concessa, stando alla premessa di non volere inventare e non volere fare fiction in alcun modo. Ma qui sta anche l'inghippo: fermandosi ai dati e ai fatti e alle parole documentati, i protagonisti delle vicende finiscono per assomigliarsi un po' tutti e il lettore (o per lo meno io lettrice) finisce per confonderli tra loro: tutti egualmente intelligenti, intraprendenti, impavidi, ambiziosi, aitanti, affascinanti, colti, poliglotti, sicuri di sé e con la carriera assicurata. Se solo avessero avuto una qualche seppur minima caratterizzazione in più, un qualche minimo difetto, anche se inquinata da una minima misura di fantasia, l'opera ne avrebbe guadagnato enormemente.
Stesso discorso per le descrizioni dei luoghi, descrizioni di cui si sente fortemente la mancanza. I protagonisti attraversano migliaia e migliaia di chilometri di deserto, giungono in oasi che definire magiche sarebbe poca cosa, ma Hopkirk non concede il lusso non dico di una descrizione o di una istantanea sfuocata, ma nemmeno di una congettura. Il lettore lo sa di suo, per forza di logica, che i luoghi visitati dai protagonisti non sono tutti uguali, eppure la percezione immediata che si ricava da tale tipo di narrazione è - purtroppo - proprio quella: personaggi tutti uguali in luoghi tutti uguali. Solo verso il finale, qualche breve suggestione a proposito di Lhasa e qualche vaga descrizione di Chitral, hanno il sapore della beffa proprio perché tardive.
Da un lato ne ammiro la coerenza, sempre preciso, documentato, sempre saldo nel suo intento di non inventare nulla, eppure Hopkirk proprio a causa di questi suoi buoni propositi si rende in alcuni passaggi comicamente sbrigativo o goffamente approssimativo.
Nonostante la montagna di difetti, si legge veramente di gusto. Considerata la montagna di difetti non è altro (cito, anzi ricopio @Savasandir) "che il novero delle audaci imprese dei più temerari e spregiudicati uomini del tempo". A voler approfondire il discorso, l'essere temerari, testardi e spregiudicati è un qualcosa che ha anche lati negativi e non solo eroicamente e romanticamente positivi. A tratti mi sono trovata a pensare che queste schiere di avventurieri, militari, politici, diplomatici, sebbene ci vengano proposte da Hopkirk come figure altamente romantiche, in verità siano quanto di più vicino ci possa essere alla odierna figura del faccendiere, che un po' agisce per conto dell'uno, un po' per conto dell'altro, un po' per conto proprio, si intrufola, carpisce informazioni, con un po' di blandizie o con un po' di scambi di doni, viscido come un'anguilla e trasformista come un camaleonte. Eppure, dicevo, per quanto si accumulino premesse negative e osservazioni di difetti, la lettura si porta avanti con un piacere sempre costante: forse è solo per via del fatto che la mente del lettore, in background, è quasi obbligata a ricrearsi da sola quella dose di suggestione che l'autore proprio non vuole concedergli per iscritto. Come quando uno si ciba solo di alimenti dietetici e sconditi, e poi intanto il corpo produce colesterolo di suo, anche se non si sa bene da dove lo tiri fuori.
Uno dei lati positivi della ricostruzione fedele e documentata è nel poter quasi toccare con mano l'eleganza dei modi di questi ufficiali che sanno di doversi scannare il giorno successivo, ma il giorno prima conversano amabilmente e si offrono a vicenda il pranzo e la cena. Una certa cavalleria ed eleganza sono veramente morte e sepolte con il XIX sec., spariti la grazia e il garbo oggi ci restano solo fanatismo e ipocrisia.
In diversi definiscono il libro filobritannico e quindi anti-russo se non addirittura russofobo. Io non l'ho sentito in questo modo. E' filobritannico dal momento in cui l'autore britannico predilige le fonti britanniche, questo sì, ma non c'è sbilanciamento nel voler far apparire sotto una luce migliore questi rispetto a quelli. E' anche vero che in qualche passo vengono definiti "eroici" dei personaggi inglesi che, almeno stando al racconto, dal vero eroismo restano piuttosto distanti; ma ad ogni modo le disfatte inglesi, quando sono causate da vergognosi errori e scandalose titubanze, vengono presentate senza nessun tentativo di addolcire l'amaro della pillola. Le spedizioni catastrofiche, tutto sommato, vengono descritte utilizzando gli stessi aggettivi, sia che si tratti di spedizioni inglesi, sia che si tratti di spedizioni russe. Casomai è un po' comica l'ammirazione che si percepisce, tra le righe, da parte dell'autore nei confronti dei falchi e degli "arcirussofobi" della politica britannica dell'epoca. Ma che sia russofobo lui stesso, questo non lo direi, e nemmeno che sia privo di obiettività, viste e considerate le riflessioni del finale.
Essendo l'opera più un saggio che un romanzo, il finale avrebbe dovuto contemplare una qualche riflessione più approfondita circa il significato e le conseguenze di un risiko durato oltre un secolo. Ma invece di approfondire, Hopkirk sceglie di lasciare il lettore vis-à-vis con un dilemma, un autentico dubbio amletico (ed è una scelta che tutto sommato non mi dispiace, suona come un finale aperto): le popolazioni dei paesi soggetti all'imperialismo dell'una e dell'altra parte, che mai sono state consultate e mai figurano come parti in causa in maniera attiva ma sempre e solo passiva, sul fonte inglese hanno avuto infine ciò che veramente volevano, e cioè starsene in pace, dal momento in cui hanno avuto l'indipendenza nel '47, mentre sul fronte russo l'imperialismo non ha mai avuto una vera e propria fine. Hopkirk fa questa osservazione grossomodo corretta e poi, con un doppio carpiato all'indietro, afferma che gli "eroi" dell'impero russo hanno in fin dei conti avuto il loro monumento, la loro morte non è stata vana dal momento in cui i territori per la cui conquista essi hanno lottato, sono tutt'oggi sotto la sfera di influenza della loro patria; e invece al contrario gli "eroi" britannici hanno visto vanificato il proprio sacrificio proprio in virtù di quell'indipendenza citata dianzi. E così, si resta con il dubbio: meglio essere o non essere? Meglio zuppa o pan bagnato?
November 30, 2016
This is narrative history that can keep one enthralled from the first to the last page. Cliches such as page-turner apply. No doubt the game itself can be discussed further, new books published etc etc but who cares. Hopkirk has written a book that had me looking at the maps, researching the characters, marking the bibliography for further literature to read. What more can one want! A wonderful book.
November 18, 2008
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....
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....
September 5, 2017
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 1905. 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 intractable buffer between the two imperial giants. A must for anyone who, like me, wants a concise history of imperial interference in this area.
April 7, 2013
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.
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.
September 11, 2020
Peter Hopkirk's excellent book, The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia represents an extended tale of Silk Road spies, Oriental despots, cartographers enlisted by the Royal Geographic Society (at times disguised as Afghan traders), high-ranking & titled British officers, agent-provocateur's, Muslim fanatics, tribal warlords, Sepoys (recruited Indian troops, including a few fierce Ghurkas, all in service to Great Britain) + countless British & Russian soldiers endeavoring to stay alive while far from home, engaged in fighting & representing the flags of empire in places the names for which they often can barely pronounce.
In Hopkirk's book, the reader also encounters place names that are redolent of adventure & geographic uncertainty, destinations like the Khyber Pass, the Hindu Kush, the Pamir Gap, Kashgar, Khiva, Kandahar & Kabul, the Karakorum Pass and the Taklamakan Desert (the name in the Uighur language meaning "you go in but do not come out")--a place known to swallow up travelers, soldiers, Buddhist monks, merchants, & occasionally entire caravans.
The period covered begins in the early 19th century with the Russian Czar seeming to match wits & extensive treasury outflows with the British King and ends (roughly speaking) a century or so later with the realignment of Europe & Asia, the fall of the Czar, the death of the Ottoman Empire and the lessening of British imperial power during the time between the two World Wars.
Peter Hopkirk began as a British journalist & spent considerable time on assignment in far-off locales that constituted the "Great Game", across today's Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, west & north into the Caucasus countries & Iran, landscapes that demanded a sense of adventure, with the author gradually becoming fascinated with the locations he was sent to, the concept of the Great Game & an abiding interest in Kipling's fictional portrayal of that phase of history in his amazing novel Kim. There is also mention of John Buchan's now little-known novel, The Half-Hearted detailing this era.
The reader can retrospectively ask why so many young British & Russian men, among countless others, were fated to die in this grand Asiatic contest but that is an idle speculation at this point; the time of imperial destiny may now seem long ago & far away but it was for many centuries a pervasive quest, harkening back well beyond Great Britain, Czarist Russia & the Ottoman Empire to the Greeks, Romans, Mongols & Persians, among others. In Hopkirk's book, the struggle seemed an attempt not so much to expand British territory but to defensively protect the "Crown Jewel of Empire", i.e. India, from Russian incursion, most probably with an invasion coming south through Afghanistan.
Here's is just a sample of Hopkirk's unfolding story:
According to Hopkirk, Arthur Conolly also had a strongly religious nature and "in common with most of his generation, believed in the civilizing mission of Christianity & in the duty of its adherents to bring the message of salvation to others less fortunate." Indeed, the author does often view those protecting their homelands from intruders as heinous, treacherous & fanatical but he also sees British leadership as marked by incompetence, irresolution & plain cowardice, as in the case of General William Elphinstone.
There is a comment about how the British viewed the massacre of its 44th regiment, wherein "a mob of heathen savages, armed with home-made weapons had routed the greatest power on earth", a devastating blow to British pride & prestige. One survivor, Wm. Brydon, of 4,500 British troops & civilians, including women & children, managed to find his way back to the British garrison at Jalalabad.
It seemed that while both Britain & Russia were chastened by their costly adventures in Central Asia, neither ever seemed to learn a lesson or to demonstrate the nerve to withdraw from the Great Game. At one point when Russia became quiescent after a catastrophic defeat in its attempt to control Khiva in present-day Uzbekistan, Hopkirk indicates that it "proved to be merely half-time in the struggle for ascendancy in Central Asia." At this point, Persia had entered the fray and took control of Herat in Afghanistan. Afghanistan was then, as it continues to be, "political quicksand", with much of Asia a vast & shadowy chess board.
This is to be sure a rather blood-soaked tale, with grim betrayals, frequent beheadings but also uncommon bravery. Hopkirk contends that while the British may have had their Achilles' heel in India, the Russians had theirs in the Caucasus where the local Muslim tribes were still holding out fiercely against the might of the Czar.
Across snow-capped peaks, mountain ranges & great deserts the British & Russian forces seemed to play a costly, deadly game that ultimately ended in a kind of stalemate that came at last with the fall of the Russian Czar. However, on so very many occasions what some have termed the "melting pot of history" also became its vast graveyard, with young men from both major Great Game contestants "dying while filthy, half-starved & lice-ridden, so very far from their beloved homes".
Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game first appeared in 1990 & stands as a very interesting, well-researched book, written with a journalist's eye for detail. I recommend it, as well as another of Hopkirk's books, Quest For Kim, an excellent companion to Kipling's novel.
*Images within review: Peter Hopkirk; Anglo-Indian troops; Lt. Arthur Conolly in disguise; map of Great Game territory; British troops fighting in 1st Anglo-Afghan War, 1842.
In Hopkirk's book, the reader also encounters place names that are redolent of adventure & geographic uncertainty, destinations like the Khyber Pass, the Hindu Kush, the Pamir Gap, Kashgar, Khiva, Kandahar & Kabul, the Karakorum Pass and the Taklamakan Desert (the name in the Uighur language meaning "you go in but do not come out")--a place known to swallow up travelers, soldiers, Buddhist monks, merchants, & occasionally entire caravans.
The period covered begins in the early 19th century with the Russian Czar seeming to match wits & extensive treasury outflows with the British King and ends (roughly speaking) a century or so later with the realignment of Europe & Asia, the fall of the Czar, the death of the Ottoman Empire and the lessening of British imperial power during the time between the two World Wars.
Peter Hopkirk began as a British journalist & spent considerable time on assignment in far-off locales that constituted the "Great Game", across today's Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, west & north into the Caucasus countries & Iran, landscapes that demanded a sense of adventure, with the author gradually becoming fascinated with the locations he was sent to, the concept of the Great Game & an abiding interest in Kipling's fictional portrayal of that phase of history in his amazing novel Kim. There is also mention of John Buchan's now little-known novel, The Half-Hearted detailing this era.
The reader can retrospectively ask why so many young British & Russian men, among countless others, were fated to die in this grand Asiatic contest but that is an idle speculation at this point; the time of imperial destiny may now seem long ago & far away but it was for many centuries a pervasive quest, harkening back well beyond Great Britain, Czarist Russia & the Ottoman Empire to the Greeks, Romans, Mongols & Persians, among others. In Hopkirk's book, the struggle seemed an attempt not so much to expand British territory but to defensively protect the "Crown Jewel of Empire", i.e. India, from Russian incursion, most probably with an invasion coming south through Afghanistan.
Here's is just a sample of Hopkirk's unfolding story:
On January 14, 1831, a bearded, disheveled figure in native dress wandered out of the desert at an obscure town on British India's NW frontier, an area then collectively known as Sind. He had been traveling for more than a year, often exposed to great danger, his complexion darkened almost black by months in the sun, at times doubting that he'd ever return alive.
He was in fact a young British officer in disguise, Lieutenant Arthur Conolly of the 6th Bengal Native Light Calvary, having somehow survived his mission to reconnoiter the military & political no-man's-land between the Caucasus & the Khyber, through which a Russian army might march. Daring, resourceful & ambitious, Conolly was the archetypical Great Game player & it was he, fittingly enough, who first coined this memorable phrase in a latter to a friend. Despite his junior rank & tender years, his views were to have a considerable influence on the outcome of the Anglo-Russian rivalry in Asia.
According to Hopkirk, Arthur Conolly also had a strongly religious nature and "in common with most of his generation, believed in the civilizing mission of Christianity & in the duty of its adherents to bring the message of salvation to others less fortunate." Indeed, the author does often view those protecting their homelands from intruders as heinous, treacherous & fanatical but he also sees British leadership as marked by incompetence, irresolution & plain cowardice, as in the case of General William Elphinstone. There is a comment about how the British viewed the massacre of its 44th regiment, wherein "a mob of heathen savages, armed with home-made weapons had routed the greatest power on earth", a devastating blow to British pride & prestige. One survivor, Wm. Brydon, of 4,500 British troops & civilians, including women & children, managed to find his way back to the British garrison at Jalalabad.
It seemed that while both Britain & Russia were chastened by their costly adventures in Central Asia, neither ever seemed to learn a lesson or to demonstrate the nerve to withdraw from the Great Game. At one point when Russia became quiescent after a catastrophic defeat in its attempt to control Khiva in present-day Uzbekistan, Hopkirk indicates that it "proved to be merely half-time in the struggle for ascendancy in Central Asia." At this point, Persia had entered the fray and took control of Herat in Afghanistan. Afghanistan was then, as it continues to be, "political quicksand", with much of Asia a vast & shadowy chess board.
This is to be sure a rather blood-soaked tale, with grim betrayals, frequent beheadings but also uncommon bravery. Hopkirk contends that while the British may have had their Achilles' heel in India, the Russians had theirs in the Caucasus where the local Muslim tribes were still holding out fiercely against the might of the Czar.
Across snow-capped peaks, mountain ranges & great deserts the British & Russian forces seemed to play a costly, deadly game that ultimately ended in a kind of stalemate that came at last with the fall of the Russian Czar. However, on so very many occasions what some have termed the "melting pot of history" also became its vast graveyard, with young men from both major Great Game contestants "dying while filthy, half-starved & lice-ridden, so very far from their beloved homes".
Peter Hopkirk's The Great Game first appeared in 1990 & stands as a very interesting, well-researched book, written with a journalist's eye for detail. I recommend it, as well as another of Hopkirk's books, Quest For Kim, an excellent companion to Kipling's novel.
*Images within review: Peter Hopkirk; Anglo-Indian troops; Lt. Arthur Conolly in disguise; map of Great Game territory; British troops fighting in 1st Anglo-Afghan War, 1842.
April 22, 2023
First I read, ‘On Secret Service East of Constantinople: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire’.
Then: ‘Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Treasures of Central Asia’.
I was hooked.
I then read, ‘Kim’ and ‘Quest for Kim’.
I grabbed, ‘Setting the East Ablaze’ and it was at this point I engaged my brain.
The better order of reading I’m sure is (I’m not the quickest of the bunch):
1) ‘The Great Game; On Secret Service in High Asia’.
2) ‘On Secret Service East of Constantinople: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire’.
3) ‘Setting the East Ablaze’.
4) ‘Kim’.
5) ‘Quest for Kim’.
There’s nothing I can say about ‘The Great Game; On Secret Service in High Asia’ that has not already been said.
It is a wonderful account and, already addicted to Peter Hopkirk’s tellings, I was completely captivated by a part of history I knew nothing of.
This is a most wonderful book, I shall buy it in hardback and keep it in my bedroom.
I’m already part way into ‘Setting the East Ablaze’.
Then: ‘Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Treasures of Central Asia’.
I was hooked.
I then read, ‘Kim’ and ‘Quest for Kim’.
I grabbed, ‘Setting the East Ablaze’ and it was at this point I engaged my brain.
The better order of reading I’m sure is (I’m not the quickest of the bunch):
1) ‘The Great Game; On Secret Service in High Asia’.
2) ‘On Secret Service East of Constantinople: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire’.
3) ‘Setting the East Ablaze’.
4) ‘Kim’.
5) ‘Quest for Kim’.
There’s nothing I can say about ‘The Great Game; On Secret Service in High Asia’ that has not already been said.
It is a wonderful account and, already addicted to Peter Hopkirk’s tellings, I was completely captivated by a part of history I knew nothing of.
This is a most wonderful book, I shall buy it in hardback and keep it in my bedroom.
I’m already part way into ‘Setting the East Ablaze’.
March 21, 2024
An easily readable and really interesting book on events still influencing and partly explaining the relations between States in the Central Asian area. Warmly recommended.
-------
Libro molto interessante e scorrevole su eventi che, ancora oggi, influenzano e in parte spiegano i rapporti tra Stati nell'area dell'Asia Centrale. Caldamente consigliato.
-------
Libro molto interessante e scorrevole su eventi che, ancora oggi, influenzano e in parte spiegano i rapporti tra Stati nell'area dell'Asia Centrale. Caldamente consigliato.
February 17, 2013
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.
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.
September 18, 2022
بازی بزرگ هرچند فقط شامل ایران نمیشه اما مهمترین مجموعه اتفاقات رو برای درک تاریخ معاصر ایران شامل میشه.
الان راحتتر درک میکنم چرا قرارداد ۱۹۰۷ با اون کیفیت بین روس تزاری و امپراطوری بریتانیا بسته شد، چرا جنگ اول و دوم هرات به شکست منجر شد، اساسا نسبت آسیای مرکزی با تهران از منظر سیاسی چی بود، چرا ازبکها و ترکمنها دختران ایرانی مخصوصا قوچانی رو به اسارت میدزدیدن، گریبایدوف چه کسی بود و چرا ایران در فاصلهای نهچندان دور از پایان جنگ جهانی اول، از شر قاجارها خلاص شد.
درمورد کتاب باید بگم، نویسنده یک انگلیسی هست که بهخوبی انگلیس رو قهرمان جلوه میده و حتی خطاکاریهاش رو تطهیر میکنه، و روس رو اهریمنی که فقط انگلیس از پساش برمیاومده! درصورتیکه هرکدوم درراستای منافع طبقه حاکمشون با درجهای از هوشمندی خاص خودشون عمل میکردن.
چاپ کتاب، صفحهآرایی و ترجمه عالی بود. کتابی که خوندم توسط انتشارات نیلوفر چاپ شده و رضا کامشاد ترجمه کرده.
الان راحتتر درک میکنم چرا قرارداد ۱۹۰۷ با اون کیفیت بین روس تزاری و امپراطوری بریتانیا بسته شد، چرا جنگ اول و دوم هرات به شکست منجر شد، اساسا نسبت آسیای مرکزی با تهران از منظر سیاسی چی بود، چرا ازبکها و ترکمنها دختران ایرانی مخصوصا قوچانی رو به اسارت میدزدیدن، گریبایدوف چه کسی بود و چرا ایران در فاصلهای نهچندان دور از پایان جنگ جهانی اول، از شر قاجارها خلاص شد.
درمورد کتاب باید بگم، نویسنده یک انگلیسی هست که بهخوبی انگلیس رو قهرمان جلوه میده و حتی خطاکاریهاش رو تطهیر میکنه، و روس رو اهریمنی که فقط انگلیس از پساش برمیاومده! درصورتیکه هرکدوم درراستای منافع طبقه حاکمشون با درجهای از هوشمندی خاص خودشون عمل میکردن.
چاپ کتاب، صفحهآرایی و ترجمه عالی بود. کتابی که خوندم توسط انتشارات نیلوفر چاپ شده و رضا کامشاد ترجمه کرده.
April 28, 2023
The author's superb word craft brings to life a truly remarkable tale.
A great read.
A great read.
December 6, 2025
3.25 stars
“There is no doubt that this secret battle of wits - political chess game played out across the vast geopolitical chessboard of Asia - changed the course of History.”
This is a history of the nineteenth century struggle between two imperialist powers, Russia and Britain for ascendancy in Central and East Asia. It was about a number of issues. A number of imperialist powers had coveted India and Russia was one of those. Russia also had expansionist ambitions in relation to the many small states in Central Asia and towards Afghanistan and China. Hopkirk lays out here the various disastrous incursions into Afghanistan by Britain and Russia very clearly. It does make you realise that the twentieth century incursions into Afghanistan by the Soviet Union and the US supported by other NATO powers had not been thought through and no lessons had been learned from the nineteenth century.
The phrase The Great Game was inevitably coined by that arch-imperialist Rudyard Kipling:
“Now I shall go far and far into the North, playing the Great Game.”
There are fascinating accounts of explorers and travellers from both sides going into places where Europeans had previously not ventured. There are descriptions of the harsh terrain, the various unpredictable rulers who soon learnt to play the British and Russians off against each other. There was one war in the nineteenth century between the two powers (Crimean War) but there were a number of other occasions where war was close:
“It was a shadow war, not fought face to face, but by proxy and by stealth, in the back streets of Kabul, the passes of the Hindu Kush, and the deserts of Central Asia.”
Britain’s primary ambition was to hang onto India with the occasional annexation of extra bits of territory (depending on whether the Whigs or Tories were in power). Russian ambitions were clear as well, this from Witte, one of Nicholas II’s ministers:
“From the shores of the Pacific, and to the heights of the Himalayas, Russia will not only dominate the affairs of Asia, but those of Europe also.”
Of course today many of those Central Asian states now have independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The story of The Great Game may also have lessons for the current situation vis-à-vis Russia and Ukraine. I am sure current Russian tacticians are still looking at the way things worked out in the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century Russia had a vision and long-term goals, they still do.
Hopkirk’s account is interesting and provides insights into nineteenth century imperialism and how it worked (or didn’t work) on the ground.
“There is no doubt that this secret battle of wits - political chess game played out across the vast geopolitical chessboard of Asia - changed the course of History.”
This is a history of the nineteenth century struggle between two imperialist powers, Russia and Britain for ascendancy in Central and East Asia. It was about a number of issues. A number of imperialist powers had coveted India and Russia was one of those. Russia also had expansionist ambitions in relation to the many small states in Central Asia and towards Afghanistan and China. Hopkirk lays out here the various disastrous incursions into Afghanistan by Britain and Russia very clearly. It does make you realise that the twentieth century incursions into Afghanistan by the Soviet Union and the US supported by other NATO powers had not been thought through and no lessons had been learned from the nineteenth century.
The phrase The Great Game was inevitably coined by that arch-imperialist Rudyard Kipling:
“Now I shall go far and far into the North, playing the Great Game.”
There are fascinating accounts of explorers and travellers from both sides going into places where Europeans had previously not ventured. There are descriptions of the harsh terrain, the various unpredictable rulers who soon learnt to play the British and Russians off against each other. There was one war in the nineteenth century between the two powers (Crimean War) but there were a number of other occasions where war was close:
“It was a shadow war, not fought face to face, but by proxy and by stealth, in the back streets of Kabul, the passes of the Hindu Kush, and the deserts of Central Asia.”
Britain’s primary ambition was to hang onto India with the occasional annexation of extra bits of territory (depending on whether the Whigs or Tories were in power). Russian ambitions were clear as well, this from Witte, one of Nicholas II’s ministers:
“From the shores of the Pacific, and to the heights of the Himalayas, Russia will not only dominate the affairs of Asia, but those of Europe also.”
Of course today many of those Central Asian states now have independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The story of The Great Game may also have lessons for the current situation vis-à-vis Russia and Ukraine. I am sure current Russian tacticians are still looking at the way things worked out in the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century Russia had a vision and long-term goals, they still do.
Hopkirk’s account is interesting and provides insights into nineteenth century imperialism and how it worked (or didn’t work) on the ground.
September 16, 2024
I was advised on this. The reason why I pooh-poohed the idea at first is that history was not in my top-ten things to do at school.
Reading some of the reviews on GR gave me a prod.
I'm hooked on this; it is exhilarating. I became caught up in all the exploits. It stopped being what happened years ago, I was living it. I stayed awake into the small hours: for me, that is saying something.
Some of the characters depicted here were courageous to the point of I'd say utterly reckless.
This is history that reads like a thriller.
Reading some of the reviews on GR gave me a prod.
I'm hooked on this; it is exhilarating. I became caught up in all the exploits. It stopped being what happened years ago, I was living it. I stayed awake into the small hours: for me, that is saying something.
Some of the characters depicted here were courageous to the point of I'd say utterly reckless.
This is history that reads like a thriller.
January 18, 2026
** OLD REVIEW; RESHELVED AS "AVAILABLE FREE" — SEE NOTE BELOW REVIEW **
____________________________________
First thoughts: Am halfway through listening to this (i.e., about 8 hours in), but as excellent as the whole thing is, am going to take a little break. Like a good action movie, there is a lot of exciting plot offset with the occasional big "set piece," which at this point is the First Anglo-Afghan War which ended in the disastrous 1842 Retreat from Kabul...and I am frankly exhausted. Time for something a little lighter, before I get into Part II...
...and I'm back and I'm done and my goodness, that was just epic!
While Hopkirk has written numerous other books that take place both before and after the Great Game, this one is rightly seen as his magnum opus. As I just wrote in my review of Michael Lewis' The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, I am constantly amazed how anyone can take such a complex story and turn it into a coherent, rollicking tale - but both these authors make it look easy.
That said, while the story is chock-a-block with fascinating and even admirable characters, neither the British nor the Russians (nor for that matter any of the multitudinous Central Asian powers) come off looking very good here. The whole story is a condemnation of Great White colonial ambition and unchecked hubris, as (initially) Russia and then England endlessly ride roughshod over what today are all pretty much the various "-stans."* But at the risk of sounding un-PC, the Asians themselves also come off pretty generally as a brutal, primitive and/or fanatical collection of tribes and khanates. And when the Chinese also finally join the fray via their annexation of "Kashgaria," the stage is then fully set for that epic clash of cultures between China, Russia and "the West" (in the form of mainly England/U.S.) that continues to this day in terms of Chinese expansionism (both westward by land and southward by sea), Russian annexation of Crimea and hegemony in the Arctic, and the never-ending invasions of Afghanistan.** Indeed, just as "The Great War" later had to be renamed "World War I" (of II), I'm wondering if we are witnessing the beginning of "The Second Great Game" or at least "Cold War II…"
As with all of Hopkirk's books, I learned a lot about not only historical events of which I had little prior knowledge, but also how they linked together. I'd heard of Chitral before, but had no idea what exactly it was or how it played into the overall Great Game picture/chronology. And I had also never realized that the Russo-Japanese War was happening just as Frank Younghusband was rolling into Lhasa, and how Russia's loss there played a part in turning England's mood against the Tibetan "mission," since it helped point out that the greater future threat to Britain came not from Moscow, but from Germany; and when THAT fight began, they were going to need Russia as an ally, not an enemy. (And for that story, see Hopkirk's next book, Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire.)
Anyway…an outstanding story, if perhaps about some less than proud moments in history. And as always when I read such books, it whets my appetite for more - which is why I plan to soon get around to such peripheral books (most of which I've owned for years but never read) as Macartney At Kashgar: New Light On British, Chinese, And Russian Activities In Sinkiang, 1890-1918, The Relief of Chitral and - which should go without saying - Flashman in the Great Game.
* And not just Central Asia; it's important to remember that at this same time, England was continuing its less-than-benign empire building in India and Africa, as well as its unconscionable abuse of my ancestors in Ireland.
** It's Mark Twain who is credited with saying that "history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes," and that definitely sounds like something he'd say. But while it's clever, it is also untrue - history absolutely fucking repeats itself, with Afghanistan being the best current example, from Alexander to Genghis Khan to the Persians, British, Russians, Americans...And yet after all that, the soon-to-be-back in power Taliban are little different than the mobs who killed Cavagnari and his men in Kabul in 1880. Although just as I was reading about the attack on the Bala Hissar, I was also watching the latest videos of the Redneck Revolt at the U.S. Capitol on 06 January…now THAT is history rhyming.
Us too, Hobbes. Us too.
____________________________________
____________________________________
NOTE: A copy of this book (Kodansha paperback edition) is available free to any Goodreads friend who is willing to pay for shipping, (or pick up in person, if living in the Northern Virginia/WDC area). If interested and you have my email, just send a note with the word "Goodreads" somewhere in the text or subject, so I can find in a search. If you DON'T have my email, add a comment on this review with YOUR email, and I'll get back to you to set something up. Happy reading!
You can see other books on my "available free to friends" bookshelf (still under construction); meanwhile, here are a few blurry photos with some of the other available titles:
____________________________________
First thoughts: Am halfway through listening to this (i.e., about 8 hours in), but as excellent as the whole thing is, am going to take a little break. Like a good action movie, there is a lot of exciting plot offset with the occasional big "set piece," which at this point is the First Anglo-Afghan War which ended in the disastrous 1842 Retreat from Kabul...and I am frankly exhausted. Time for something a little lighter, before I get into Part II...
...and I'm back and I'm done and my goodness, that was just epic!
While Hopkirk has written numerous other books that take place both before and after the Great Game, this one is rightly seen as his magnum opus. As I just wrote in my review of Michael Lewis' The Premonition: A Pandemic Story, I am constantly amazed how anyone can take such a complex story and turn it into a coherent, rollicking tale - but both these authors make it look easy.
That said, while the story is chock-a-block with fascinating and even admirable characters, neither the British nor the Russians (nor for that matter any of the multitudinous Central Asian powers) come off looking very good here. The whole story is a condemnation of Great White colonial ambition and unchecked hubris, as (initially) Russia and then England endlessly ride roughshod over what today are all pretty much the various "-stans."* But at the risk of sounding un-PC, the Asians themselves also come off pretty generally as a brutal, primitive and/or fanatical collection of tribes and khanates. And when the Chinese also finally join the fray via their annexation of "Kashgaria," the stage is then fully set for that epic clash of cultures between China, Russia and "the West" (in the form of mainly England/U.S.) that continues to this day in terms of Chinese expansionism (both westward by land and southward by sea), Russian annexation of Crimea and hegemony in the Arctic, and the never-ending invasions of Afghanistan.** Indeed, just as "The Great War" later had to be renamed "World War I" (of II), I'm wondering if we are witnessing the beginning of "The Second Great Game" or at least "Cold War II…"
As with all of Hopkirk's books, I learned a lot about not only historical events of which I had little prior knowledge, but also how they linked together. I'd heard of Chitral before, but had no idea what exactly it was or how it played into the overall Great Game picture/chronology. And I had also never realized that the Russo-Japanese War was happening just as Frank Younghusband was rolling into Lhasa, and how Russia's loss there played a part in turning England's mood against the Tibetan "mission," since it helped point out that the greater future threat to Britain came not from Moscow, but from Germany; and when THAT fight began, they were going to need Russia as an ally, not an enemy. (And for that story, see Hopkirk's next book, Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire.)
Anyway…an outstanding story, if perhaps about some less than proud moments in history. And as always when I read such books, it whets my appetite for more - which is why I plan to soon get around to such peripheral books (most of which I've owned for years but never read) as Macartney At Kashgar: New Light On British, Chinese, And Russian Activities In Sinkiang, 1890-1918, The Relief of Chitral and - which should go without saying - Flashman in the Great Game.
* And not just Central Asia; it's important to remember that at this same time, England was continuing its less-than-benign empire building in India and Africa, as well as its unconscionable abuse of my ancestors in Ireland.
** It's Mark Twain who is credited with saying that "history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes," and that definitely sounds like something he'd say. But while it's clever, it is also untrue - history absolutely fucking repeats itself, with Afghanistan being the best current example, from Alexander to Genghis Khan to the Persians, British, Russians, Americans...And yet after all that, the soon-to-be-back in power Taliban are little different than the mobs who killed Cavagnari and his men in Kabul in 1880. Although just as I was reading about the attack on the Bala Hissar, I was also watching the latest videos of the Redneck Revolt at the U.S. Capitol on 06 January…now THAT is history rhyming.
Us too, Hobbes. Us too.
____________________________________
____________________________________
NOTE: A copy of this book (Kodansha paperback edition) is available free to any Goodreads friend who is willing to pay for shipping, (or pick up in person, if living in the Northern Virginia/WDC area). If interested and you have my email, just send a note with the word "Goodreads" somewhere in the text or subject, so I can find in a search. If you DON'T have my email, add a comment on this review with YOUR email, and I'll get back to you to set something up. Happy reading!
You can see other books on my "available free to friends" bookshelf (still under construction); meanwhile, here are a few blurry photos with some of the other available titles:
September 9, 2019
Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia's struggle for supremacy in Central Asia.Took me a while to read,and occasionally I was a bit bored.William Dalrymple's Return of a King,which also deals with this subject is more interesting.
May 16, 2025
So readable. A page turner and full of thrills.
January 21, 2014
Don't get me wrong, I DID like the book (that's what three stars mean, incidentally). It's a well written overview and the subject matter is just so fascinating. I personally find this mixture of danger, physical hardship, different cultures, politics, spying and everything else very difficult to resist. I'm afraid I'm in love with most of the players - the frontier ones at least.
The reason I gave it three, not four stars (I almost never give five, 'cause I'm difficult to please), is that I read William Dalrymple's Return of a King just days before The Great Game. There is a big chunk of events where these two books overlap and compared to Dalrymple's balanced approach, Hopkirk emerges too Brit-centric for my taste. This is probably partly due to objective problems with access to Russian sources at the time of writing, but surely the Tsarist players could have been covered in more detail. And while Hopkirk mostly avoids hard-core stereotyping, for some reason the Russians are always lurking in the steppes or skulking in the mountains, while the Brits are, of course, gallantly exploring. When the Afghans slaughter someone, it's because of their savage nature; when the Brits do the same, it's a regrettable consequence of difficult circumstances or simply "not entirely clear". Like Homer with his "rosy-fingered dawn", Hopkirk seems unable to mention the word "steppe" without calling it lawless.
Still, an educational and enjoyable read.
The reason I gave it three, not four stars (I almost never give five, 'cause I'm difficult to please), is that I read William Dalrymple's Return of a King just days before The Great Game. There is a big chunk of events where these two books overlap and compared to Dalrymple's balanced approach, Hopkirk emerges too Brit-centric for my taste. This is probably partly due to objective problems with access to Russian sources at the time of writing, but surely the Tsarist players could have been covered in more detail. And while Hopkirk mostly avoids hard-core stereotyping, for some reason the Russians are always lurking in the steppes or skulking in the mountains, while the Brits are, of course, gallantly exploring. When the Afghans slaughter someone, it's because of their savage nature; when the Brits do the same, it's a regrettable consequence of difficult circumstances or simply "not entirely clear". Like Homer with his "rosy-fingered dawn", Hopkirk seems unable to mention the word "steppe" without calling it lawless.
Still, an educational and enjoyable read.
June 19, 2019
There are typically two kinds of history books: those that are extensively researched and cover every relevant event in comprehensive and precise detail but are dry and stylistically boring, and those that are engagingly written but gloss over the minor or complicated details for the sake of appealing to readers. Very rarely does an author succeed in achieving both. The Great Game is one of those rare books that do.
Hopkirk brings the characters and battles to life and keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very last chapter. Yet he doesn't skimp on the details. Every major and most of the minor characters are intimately developed. Almost every conflict or encounter is described. He provides evenhanded (for the most part) commentary on the political and strategic considerations and debates of the time. The geography, culture, and background history is vividly painted. He quotes directly from both primary and secondary sources, contemporary accounts, and analysis of later historians, both British and Russian.
I wish every history book was like this. I came away from it not only learning an incredible amount about a topic that is not very well known, but also enjoying it immensely. I've added all of Hopkirk's other books to my to-read, and I can't wait to get to them.
Hopkirk brings the characters and battles to life and keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very last chapter. Yet he doesn't skimp on the details. Every major and most of the minor characters are intimately developed. Almost every conflict or encounter is described. He provides evenhanded (for the most part) commentary on the political and strategic considerations and debates of the time. The geography, culture, and background history is vividly painted. He quotes directly from both primary and secondary sources, contemporary accounts, and analysis of later historians, both British and Russian.
I wish every history book was like this. I came away from it not only learning an incredible amount about a topic that is not very well known, but also enjoying it immensely. I've added all of Hopkirk's other books to my to-read, and I can't wait to get to them.
November 27, 2015
I read this fantastic book a few years ago and will re-read it at some point. I knew nothing about the politics or empire building in central Asia and found this a captivating and fascinating history of intrigue, bravery and derring-do, from north of present day Bangladesh right across to Iran and up into the Russian federation states. Spies, secret expeditions, plots to invade India (by the Russians and even Napoleon), diplomacy, bribery, war and savage death all played their part.
Hopkirk does a magnificent job painting a vivid picture of the events that protected and saved British India. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the British Empire, the British Army, the Diplomatic Service and contemporary politics. The actions that took place 200-100 years ago and the resulting attitudes and cultural heritages are still influencing our relationships with Afghanistan and other states today - some say the Great Game is still being played.
Hopkirk does a magnificent job painting a vivid picture of the events that protected and saved British India. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the history of the British Empire, the British Army, the Diplomatic Service and contemporary politics. The actions that took place 200-100 years ago and the resulting attitudes and cultural heritages are still influencing our relationships with Afghanistan and other states today - some say the Great Game is still being played.
August 31, 2017
Un compendio di viaggi e avventure nel XIX secolo, che fa venire voglia di leggersi tutte le fonti (partire no, che in questo momento la situazione tra Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan e territori limitrofi non è proprio delle più tranquille). Hopkirk racconta da dentro (con una analisi e ricerca delle fonti dettagliatissima) il "grande gioco" ovvero le battaglie sul campo e dei servizi segreti che videro fronteggiarsi Inghilterra e Russia per il controllo dell'Asia Centrale (con il non trascurabile dettaglio di difendere/conquistare una via dì accesso all'India via terra). Affascinante è anche la posizione di Hopkirk che per scontato che fosse del tutto legittimo e accettibile e corretto deporre capi, conquistare territori a 20mila km da casa: il concetto di sovranità territoriale era di là da venire, non che oggi sia molto più radicato nei potenti della Terra. Ugualmente colpisce il pregiudizio di fondo sulla perfidia asiatica e sul doppiogiochismo russo quasi apertamente dichiarati.
September 5, 2020
Ampio e interessante compendio della contesa anglo russa dell’Asia Centrale nel 19 secolo, tra spionaggio e conflitti militari. A volte addirittura emozionante ed avvincente, caratteristiche difficilmente associabili a un libro di storia. Tuttavia la visione è per impostazione, troppo occidentale e per questo un po’ irritante. Tuttavia una lettura valida, per gli argomenti così poco noti ai giorni nostri in Italia (eppure gli attuali conflitti vengono anche da lì).
Displaying 1 - 30 of 830 reviews