Special Circumstances

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

Now I shall go far and far into the North, playing the Great Game.

"Kim", Rudyard Kipling

The mention of the words `cold war' brings to mind the mostly latent conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union which involved many other countries in its wake. That, however, can be considered to be history repeating itself. The original cold war was fought throughout the 19th century including the early part of the 20th in Central Asia between the British Empire and the Russian Tsarist government. The effects of this imperialist struggle are still around today even after the fall of the British Empire and the Soviet Union. This book is a chronicle of that period of history.

`The Great Game' was a term first used by one its protagonists: Captain Arthur Conolly but it only became famous as a term describing the cold war in Central Asia after it was used by Rudyard Kipling in his novel "Kim". I highly recommend reading (or re-reading) "Kim" after reading this book.

It amazes me that India was the land that ignited the entire conspiracy of the Great Game with both the British and the Russians trying to control the `immense riches' of India. A changing economy and a few hundred years of British rule have taken care of that particular tempation towards colonialism and completely changed the image of India in the world.

The time covered by the Great Game is expansive, starting with the treaty between Napolean and the Russians in 1807 all the way to the British invasion of Tibet in 1904. The cast of characters is similarly numerous, but this is not much of a problem as the Game is divided into many individual acts with their own protagonists. The stories themselves are compelling:

• Stoddart and Conolly's internment in the infamous Pit by the Emir of Bokhara;
• the various missions by the many British and Russian spies trying to infiltrate khanates like Khiva, Bokhara and Merv in disguise;
• the `foreign devils' like Aurel Stein stealing treasures on the Silk Road;
• the Russian annexation of Merv which eventually resulted years later in the Russian expansion into the rest of Central Asia;
• the British invasion of Afghanistan and the subsequent struggle for power in Central Asia against the Russians;
• the massacre of Tibetan soldiers by the British at Guru during the attack on Gyantse.

The books reads like a contemporary political thriller with spies, treachery, rabble rousing, lies, the politics of greed and all the other good stuff.

Despite his claim earlier in the book that `I have tried, when describing the deeds of both Britons and Russians, to remain as neutral as possible', Peter Hopkirk's sympathies clearly lie with the British and he often apologizes for their actions while condemning equally reprehensible acts by the Russians. However the bias is overt and easily discounted by the aware reader.

Until recently, this book was the most comprehensive chronicle of the Great Game and along with Peter Hopkirk's other books was a comprehensive history of the times. A new book has appeared which covers the same period of history with a broader scope: "Tournament of Shadows" by K. E. Meyer and S. B. Brysac.

"Trespassers on the roof of the world" also written by Peter Hopkirk is a chronicle of various explorers and spies that have tried to infiltrate Tibet which also featured in the Great Game but to a lesser extent and as such was mostly left out of this book.

%T The Great Game
%T :the struggle for Empire in Central Asia
%A Peter Hopkirk
%I Kodansha International
%D 1994
%G ISBN: 1568360223 (pb)
%P 565
%K history

Date written: 2000/04/30