The Great Game

"The British heroes of the Great Game have no such memorial, precarious or otherwise. There is little or nothing to show on the map for all their efforts and sacrifices. Today they live on only in unread memoirs, the occasional place name, and in the yellowing intelligence reports of that long forgotten adventure. Peter Hopkirk"

This is a classic history by Peter Hopkirk of the rivalry between Imperial Russia and The British Empire for interests in Asia. It begins during the Napoleonic Wars when Britain had recently conquered a large part of India and was becoming nervous about its newly acquired possessions. In the meantime, the newly victorious Czarist regime was looking to extend its power conquering and settling lands to the eastward and probing at the Ottoman Empire. Central Asia was a gigantic blank space, a place of danger and mystery and sometimes of romantic tales.

Both Britain and Russia sent a series of explorer-spies into this vast territory to find out what was there. As well as intriguing with, or pressuring local princes. This became a generations long Secret War which was to end in an anticlimax when both powers decided that there were more important matters elsewhere.

In retrospect it seems like much ado about nothing at first glance. For Russia to invade India, it would have to get past the nastiest deserts in the world, then the nastiest mountains in the world. Then the British and Indian armies. In other words Russia trying to conquer India would have been an even worse disaster then anyone else trying to conquer Russia. But there was no way to know that for sure at the time. In any case, much of our knowledge of the geography of the region comes from those days.

Other books in the series are Like Hidden Fire or alternatively On Secret Service East of Constantinople(about German intrigues in Central Asia in World War I) and Setting the East Ablaze(about the Russian Civil War in Central Asia) and Tresspassers on the Roof of the World(about the great game as played in Tibet). Other books which deal with the area but not precisely about the great game are Foreign Devils on the Silk Road(about early archeological expeditions) and The Quest for Kim(about tracing the possible inspirations for the classic story Kim by Rudyard Kipling. All of these are now available in Amazon Kindle format.

Provides examples / considers the topics of:

 * Adventurer Archaeologist s
 * Badass : tons
 * The British Empire
 * Cloak and Dagger
 * Crossing the Desert
 * Forever War
 * Imperial Russia
 * Indian Political Service
 * Land of One City: several
 * Papa Wolf: One Muslim city made a habit of enslaving Russians. When an agent got inside the slaves told him to give news of their plight to the outside world. As this was a splendid pretext the Czar was quite eager to amass an army to conquer that city. The British thereupon persuaded the local Sultan to just release the slaves rather then annoy Mother Russia.
 * Precursors : This was an area full of ruins of Ancient Civilizations. However there were no secrets that Man Was Not Meant to Know.
 * Qurac
 * The Raj
 * Recycled in Space: Some aspects of Traveller are rather like this. Specifically the Frontier Wars between the Zhodani and the Imperium can be compared to the relation between Russia and Britain at this time.
 * Secret War
 * Shangri La
 * Spy-Versus-Spy
 * Worthy Opponent: The author thinks of the Russian agents as this.