At stake was the security of India, key to the wealth of the British Empire. In a phrase coined by Captain Arthur Connolly of the East India Company before he was beheaded in Bokhara for spying in 1842, a "Great Game" was played between Tsarist Russia and Victorian England for supremacy in Central Asia. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Based on meticulous scholarship and 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 and treachery through the actual experiences of its colorful characters. Now, in the vacuum left by the disintegration of the Soviet Union, there is once again talk of Russian soldiers "dipping their toes in the Indian Ocean." When play first began, the frontiers of Russia and British India lay 2000 miles apart by the end, this distance had shrunk to twenty miles at some points. The Great Game between Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia was fought across desolate terrain from the Caucasus to China, over the lonely passes of the Parmirs and Karakorams, in the blazing Kerman and Helmund deserts, and through the caravan towns of the old Silk Road-both powers scrambling to control access to the riches of India and the East.
Peter Hopkirk’s spellbinding account of the great imperial struggle for supremacy in Central Asoa has been hailed as essential reading with that era’s legacy playing itself out today. THE GREATGAME: THE EPIC STORY BEHIND TODAY’S HEADLINES
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