The Great Game: The Struggle For Empire In Central Asia (1994) - Plot & Excerpts
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.
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.
What do You think about The Great Game: The Struggle For Empire In Central Asia (1994)?
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.
—Gary Barnes
"There were peaches, plums, apricots, pears, apples, quinces, cherries, walnuts, mulberries pomegranates and vines all growing in one garden. There were also nightingales, blackbirds, thrushes and doves ... and chattering magpies on almost every tree." Thus Alexander Burnes, a young British subaltern, likening the city he had entered for the first time to paradise. The date was April 1832. The city was Kabul. Peter Hopkirk's masterly history goes a long way to explaining how the capital of Afghanistan and its surroundings have been transformed into the bloody battleground which features so often in today's television news. The story covers most of the 19th Century, when Russia was flexing its muscles to extend its eastern boundaries while India - at the outset run by a commercial enterprise, the East India Company, with its own army - feared an invasion from the north. Persia and Turkey had their own interests to protect and possibly to advance. Between the territories of the great powers lay a virtually unmapped, mountainous region populated by warring khanates. Here are the men who shaped the conflict, sometimes in disguise, always in danger, often wielding swords and bayonets. They were principally British and Russian with a supporting cast of Cossacks, Gurkhas, Sikhs, Afghans, Turcomans and Kashmiris. Treachery, bluff and double bluff were the cards in the Great Game. Sieges and battles, vividly described, make for enthralling reading; heroes emerge whose deeds earned many a Victoria Cross. There were occasions when officers from the two sides could share a meal on a mountainside and drink a toast to the possibility that their next meeting might be as deadly enemies. By the end the dead numbered not tens but hundreds of thousands. Not the least achievement of this fine book is to present much of the struggle in terms of the brave men from both sides who took leading roles, but also to preserve a clear view of the fluctuating political and diplomatic exchanges between London, Calcutta and Simla, and St Petersburg. Successive Tsars come and go, the British Parliament is itself a battleground between Tories and Liberals. There are lessons here in abundance, not least to leave one dismayed by what has become of Kabul between 1832 and 2009.
—Gerald Sinstadt
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.
—Cameron Willis
