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. 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 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 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!!!! Think midsWB 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. Lawrence, he read them too. 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.
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. 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. View 2 comments. 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.
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, , 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. One survivor, Wm. 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.
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. I recommend it, as well as another of Hopkirk's books, Quest For Kim , an excellent companion to Kipling's novel. View all 8 comments. Jul 08, Phrodrick rated it really liked it.
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 In The Great Game, Peter Hopkirk has reported a lot of history with just enough analysis.
The Great Game constitutes my second attempt to build a background on a region described as the Top of the World. 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. 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.
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. Her situation was relatively simple. Protect existing holdings from real and perceived threat by Imperial Russia.
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. 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. 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.
View all 5 comments. 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. 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. 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. 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. Mar 29, Maitrey rated it it was ok Shelves: history. First things first, it is an engaging read, with just the correct amount of detail and narrative punch. Covering a time period right from the 16th Century, when the Russians slowly started expanding eastwards and came in conflict first with the Central Asian Khanates, then with the British Raj in the 19th Century, the book finishes with the Great Game's own end in the beginning of the 20th Century when Japan beat the Russian Empire.
Hopkirk does a decent job of covering such a massive time span w First things first, it is an engaging read, with just the correct amount of detail and narrative punch. 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 s and s, rather than a book published in !
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 s 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.
View all 3 comments. First thoughts: Am halfway through listening to this i. 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 Retreat from Kabul Time for something a little lighter, before I get into Part II 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. 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.
Anyway…an outstanding story, if perhaps about some less than proud moments in history. 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 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.
Us too, Hobbes. Us too. Jun 03, Joel rated it it was amazing Shelves: 19th-century , history , to-read 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 y 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.
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.
Interestingly, on page 74 of this volume, Hopkirk describes Kazakhs as those who roamed the vast steppe region to the south and east. The great hordes, he wrote, which formerly issued from the plains of Tartary to invade kingdoms of the south, generally carried with their flocks the means of their sustenance. Nor were they encumbered with the heavy equipment necessary for modern warfare. We hope that our readers enjoy this volume as much as the rest of the vibrant academic community studying these historic periods in detail.
Prior to his appointment as the Ambassador to the U. Kazakhstan through Eyes of Western Travelers. Please choose whether or not you want other users to be able to see on your profile that this library is a favorite of yours. Finding libraries that hold this item Written with engrossing flair Hopkirk tells the story well, playing up the romance and glamour while never losing sight of the overarching historical picture.
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