The Great Game; On Secret Service in High Asia
Peter Hopkirk
562 pages, including index
published in 1990

I noticed this book browsing through Amsterdam's central library. It seemed appropriate, considering the zeal with which the current US government is resurrecting the Great Game and its insistence on making the same mistakes the Brits and Russians made more then a century earlier.

The original Great Game was the struggle for influence and power in Central Asia between Britain and Russia. It took place between the Caucasus and the eastern reaches of China and in between the ever encrouching borders of Russia and British India. The Great Game started during the Napoleonic Wars and only ended after the Russians got their heads handed to them by the Japanese in the 1905 war. During this time, the border of British India and British influence steadily moved northwards, the Russian border and Russian influence moved steadily southwards, as both sides reacted to the other in their attempts to gain the upper hand.

The Great Game is as much about the players of the game, the daring secret agents and explorers who risked death and worse for their country surveying Central Asia, as it is about the game itself. Peter Hopkirk keeps switching between the general and the specific, showing how the actions of a handful of men influenced the policies of their respective empires.

Very much recommended, both for its "boy's adventure" anecdotes of daring explorers as for the look at British and Russian intrigue in 19th century Asia.