The Great Game

by Hopkirk, Peter

• ISBN13: 9781568360225
• ISBN10: 1568360223
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 1994-05-15
• Publisher: Kodansha Globe

Summary

Peter 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 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. 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. 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." 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. Based on meticulous scholarship and on-the-spot research, this is the history at the core of today's geopolitics.

Author Biography

PETER HOPKIRK is the author of Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire, Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Race for Lhasa, and two other books. A staff writer for The Times of London for nineteen years, five as its chief reporter, he is a Middle and Far East specialist.

Table of Contents

Maps	xi	(2)
Illustrations	xiii	(2)
Foreword	xv	(4)
Acknowledgements	xix
Prologue	1	(8)
THE BEGINNINGS	9	(112)
1. The Yellow Peril	11	(13)
2. Napoleonic Nightmare	24	(14)
3. Rehearsal for the Great Game	38	(19)
4. The Russian Bogy	57	(12)
5. All Roads Lead to India	69	(8)
6. The First of the Russian Players	77	(12)
7. A Strange Tale of Two Dogs	89	(10)
8. Death on the Oxus	99	(10)
9. The Barometer Falls	109	(12)
THE MIDDLE YEARS	121	(172)
10. `The Great Game'	123	(12)
11. Enter `Bokhara' Burnes	135	(18)
12. The Greatest Fortress in the World	153	(12)
13. The Mysterious Vitkevich	165	(10)
14. Hero of Herat	175	(13)
15. The Kingmakers	188	(14)
16. The Race for Khiva	202	(11)
17. The Freeing of the Slaves	213	(17)
18. Night of the Long Knives	230	(13)
19. Catastrophe	243	(14)
20. Massacre in the Passes	257	(13)
21. The Last Hours of Conolly and Stoddart	270	(11)
22. Half-time	281	(12)
THE CLIMACTIC YEARS	293	(234)
23. The Great Russian Advance Begins	295	(11)
24. Lion of Tashkent	306	(15)
25. Spies Along the Silk Road	321	(18)
26. The Feel of Cold Steel Across His Throat	339	(16)
27. `A Physician from the North'	355	(10)
28. Captain Burnaby's Ride to Khiva	365	(19)
29. Bloodbath at the Bala Hissar	384	(18)
30. The Last Stand of the Turcomans	402	(16)
31. To the Brink of War	418	(12)
32. The Railway Race to the East	430	(17)
33. Where Three Empires Meet	447	(18)
34. Flashpoint in the High Pamirs	465	(18)
35. The Race for Chitral	483	(19)
36. The Beginning of the End	502	(11)
37. End-game	513	(14)
Bibliography	527	(16)
Index	543