As a result, he is able to move beyond the Game to its players, to the architects of strategy. While both works are well researched, feature colorful elements, and recount much high adventure, Sergeev, a professor at the Russian Academy’s Institute of World History, has undertaken a rigorously analytical approach enriched by extensive citations from primary sources in British, Indian, Russian, Georgian, Uzbek, and Turkmen archives.
Late in the day, it came to occupy Rudyard Kipling every British schoolboy will remember his ever-engaging Kim.īefore Sergeev undertook this magisterial account, two highly readable books had appeared on the Great Game, those of Peter Hopkirk, and Meyer and Brysac. The perceived stakes were high, and advancing in or even “winning” the Great Game occupied desk-bound policy-makers, in-the-field diplomats, senior military officials, and numerous young adventure seekers. As Lord Curzon famously said, with possession of India, Britain was an imperial power without India, Britain would be a third-rate nation.
An empire-building Russia was deemed a threat to British imperial interests. “The Great Game” of this book’s title was the half century of political maneuvering and machinations in the Hindu Kush and in India’s Northwest Frontier region during this time, Great Britain guarded approaches to India, the jewel of the British Empire, while Russia sought to expand its presence in Central Asia. The Johns Hopkins University Press ( Mar 14, 2013)Įxtensively researched and enriched text details British imperialism in India. Russo-British Relations in Central and East Asia
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