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| the great game peter hopkirk: The Great Game Peter Hopkirk, 2006-03-27 For nearly a century the two most powerful nations on earth, Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia, fought a secret war in the lonely passes and deserts of Central Asia. Those engaged in this shadowy struggle called it 'The Great Game', a phrase immortalized by Kipling. When play first began the two rival empires lay nearly 2,000 miles apart. By the end, some Russian outposts were within 20 miles of India. This classic book tells the story of the Great Game through the exploits of the young officers, both British and Russian, who risked their lives playing it. Disguised as holy men or native horse-traders, they mapped secret passes, gathered intelligence and sought the allegiance of powerful khans. Some never returned. The violent repercussions of the Great Game are still convulsing Central Asia today. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Quest for Kim Peter Hopkirk, 1999 Two authors' passion for India and the Great Game |
| the great game peter hopkirk: The Great Game Peter Hopkirk, 2001 For nearly a century the two most powerful nations on earth - Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia - fought a secret war in the lonely passes and deserts of Central Asia. Those engaged in this shadowy struggle called it 'The Great Game', a phrase immortalized in Kipling's Kim. When play firstbegan the two rival empires lay nearly 2,000 miles apart. By the end, some Russian outposts were within 20 miles of India. This book tells the story of the Great Game through the exploits of the young officers, both British and Russian, who risked their lives playing it. Disguised as holy men or native horsetraders, they mapped secret passes, gathered intelligence, and sought the allegiance of powerful khans. Some neverreturned. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Mapping the Great Game Riaz Dean, 2020-01-19 The work of explorers, surveyors and spies in the race to conquer Southern Asia is vividly recounted in this history of British imperial cartography. In the 19th century, the British and Russian empires were engaged in bitter rivalry for the acquisition of Southern Asian. Although India was the ultimate prize, most of the intrigue and action took place along its northern frontier in Afghanistan, Turkestan and Tibet. Mapping the region and gaining knowledge of the enemy were crucial to the interests of both sides. The Great Trigonometrical Survey of India began in the 18th century with the aim of creating a detailed map of the subcontinent. Under the leadership of George Everest—whose name was later bestowed to the world’s tallest mountain—the it mapped the Great Arc running from the country’s southern tip to the Himalayas. Much of the work was done by Indian explorers known as Pundits. They were the first to reveal the mysteries of the forbidden city of Lhasa, and discover the true course of Tibet’s mighty Tsangpo River. These explorers performed essential information gathering for the British Empire and filled in large portions of the map of Asia. Their adventurous exploits are vividly recounted in Mapping the Great Game. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: On Secret Service East of Constantinople Peter Hopkirk, 2001 Under the banner of a Holy War, masterminded in Berlin and unleashed from Constantinople, the Germans and the Turks set out in 1914 to foment violent revolutionary uprisings against the British in India and the Russians in Central Asia. It was a new and moresinister version of the old Great Game, with world domination as its ultimate aim. German hawks dreamed of driving the British out of India and creating a vast new Teutonic empire in the East, using their Turkish ally as a springboard. At the same time Turkey's leaders aimed to free the Muslim peoples of Central Asia from the Tsarist yoke -and rule them themselves as part of a new Ottoman empire. The shadowy and often bloody struggle which followed was fought out between the intelligence services of King, Kaiser, Sultan and Tsar. It was to spill over into Persia, Afghanistan, the Caucasus and Central Asia, and be felt as far afield as the United States andChina. It was around this colossal conspiracy that John Buchan wove his immortal spy story Greenmantle. Here, told in epic detail and for the first time, is the extraordinary story of the Turco-German jihad of the First World War, recounted through the adventures and misadventures of the secret agents and others who took part in it. Pieced together from the secret intelligence reports of the day andthe long-forgotten memoirs of theparticipants, Peter Hopkirk's latest narrative is an enthralling sequel to his best-selling The Great Game, and his three earlier works set in Central Asia. It is also highly topical in view of recent events in this volatile region where the Great Game has never really ceased. The rise of Islamicfundamentalism and fears of a resurgent Russia and Germany add greatly to its significance. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Like Hidden Fire Peter Hopkirk, 1994 A GRIPPING STORY OF IMPERIAL AMBITION, SWASHBUCKLING ADVENTURE, AND THE KAISER'S OWN JIHAD. An acclaimed historian tells, for the first time, the full story of the conspiracy between the Germans and the Turks to unleash a Muslim holy war against the British in India and the Russians in the Caucasus. Drawing on recently opened intelligence files and rare personal accounts, Peter Hopkirkskillfully reconstructs the Kaiser's bold plan and describes the exploits of the secret agents on both sides-disguised variously as archaeologists, traders, and circus performers-as they sought to foment or foil the uprising and determine the outcome of World War I. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Setting the East Ablaze Peter Hopkirk, 2012-02-16 'Let us turn our faces towards Asia', exhorted Lenin when the long-awaited revolution in Europe failed to materialize. 'The East will help us conquer the West.' Peter Hopkirk's book tells for the first time the story of the Bolshevik attempt to set the East ablaze with the heady new gospel of Marxism. Lenin's dream was to liberate the whole of Asia, but his starting point was British India. A shadowy undeclared war followed. Among the players in this new Great Game were British spies, Communist revolutionaries, Muslim visionaries and Chinese warlords - as well as a White Russian baron who roasted his Bolshevik captives alive. Here is an extraordinary tale of intrigue and treachery, barbarism and civil war, whose violent repercussions continue to be felt in Central Asia today. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Foreign Devils on the Silk Road Peter Hopkirk, 2011-09-15 The Silk Road, which linked imperial Rome and distant China, was once the greatest thoroughfare on earth. Along it travelled precious cargoes of silk, gold and ivory, as well as revolutionary new ideas. Its oasis towns blossomed into thriving centres of Buddhist art and learning. In time it began to decline. The traffic slowed, the merchants left and finally its towns vanished beneath the desert sands to be forgotten for a thousand years. But legends grew up of lost cities filled with treasures and guarded by demons. In the early years of the last century foreign explorers began to investigate these legends, and very soon an international race began for the art treasures of the Silk Road. Huge wall paintings, sculptures and priceless manuscripts were carried away, literally by the ton, and are today scattered through the museums of a dozen countries. Peter Hopkirk tells the story of the intrepid men who, at great personal risk, led these long-range archaeological raids, incurring the undying wrath of the Chinese. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Trespassers on the Roof of the World Peter Hopkirk, 2001 Hidden behind the Himalayas and ruled over by a God-king, Tibet has always cast a powerful spell over travellers from the West. In this remarkable, and ultimately tragic narrative, Peter Hopkirk recounts the forcible opening up of this medieval land during the nineteenthand twentieth centuries, and the extraordinary race between agents, soldiers, missionaries, mountaineers, explorers, and mystics from nine different countries to reach Lhasa, Tibet's sacred capital. His story concludes with the ultimate act of trespass - the Chinese invasion of 1950. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Setting the East Ablaze Peter Hopkirk, 1986 As the European revolution failed to materialize, Lenin decreed, Let us turn our faces towards Asia. The East will help us to conquer the West.' |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Central Asia in World History Peter B. Golden, 2011-01-26 A vast region stretching roughly from the Volga River to Manchuria and the northern Chinese borderlands, Central Asia has been called the pivot of history, a land where nomadic invaders and Silk Road traders changed the destinies of states that ringed its borders, including pre-modern Europe, the Middle East, and China. In Central Asia in World History, Peter B. Golden provides an engaging account of this important region, ranging from prehistory to the present, focusing largely on the unique melting pot of cultures that this region has produced over millennia. Golden describes the traders who braved the heat and cold along caravan routes to link East Asia and Europe; the Mongol Empire of Chinggis Khan and his successors, the largest contiguous land empire in history; the invention of gunpowder, which allowed the great sedentary empires to overcome the horse-based nomads; the power struggles of Russia and China, and later Russia and Britain, for control of the area. Finally, he discusses the region today, a key area that neighbors such geopolitical hot spots as Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and China. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Mission to Tashkent F.M. Bailey, 2002-08-08 Accused by Moscow of being a British master-spy, Colonel F.M. Bailey recounts the 16-month game of cat-and-mouse he played with the Bolshevik secret police. At one point, with a false identity, he joined the ranks of the latter, who unsuspectingly sent him to Bokhara to arrest himself. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Armies of the Raj Byron Farwell, 1989 With a profusion of anecdotes conveying the character of India under British rule. Farwell offers a panoramic survey of the Indian army during the 90 years between the Sepoy Revolt and the births of independent India and Pakistan ... |
| the great game peter hopkirk: The Great Game , 2009 |
| the great game peter hopkirk: The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China David J. Silbey, 2013-04-09 A concise history of an uprising that took down a three-hundred-year-old dynasty and united the great powers. The year is 1900, and Western empires are locked in entanglements across the globe. The British are losing a bitter war against the Boers while the German kaiser is busy building a vast new navy. The United States is struggling to put down an insurgency in the South Pacific while the upstart imperialist Japan begins to make clear to neighboring Russia its territorial ambition. In China, a perennial pawn in the Great Game, a mysterious group of superstitious peasants is launching attacks on the Western powers they fear are corrupting their country. These ordinary Chinese—called Boxers by the West because of their martial arts showmanship—rise up seemingly out of nowhere. Foreshadowing the insurgencies of our recent past, they lack a centralized leadership and instead tap into latent nationalism and deep economic frustration to build their army. Many scholars brush off the Boxer Rebellion as an ill-conceived and easily defeated revolt, but in The Boxer Rebellion and the Great Game in China, the military historian David J. Silbey shows just how close the Boxers came to beating back the combined might of the imperial powers. Drawing on the diaries and letters of allied soldiers and diplomats, he paints a vivid portrait of the war. Although their cause ended just as quickly as it began, the Boxers would inspire Chinese nationalists—including a young Mao Zedong—for decades to come. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: The New Great Game in Muslim Central Asia Mohammed E. Ahrari, James Beal, 2000-07 |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Persia in the Great Game Antony Wynn, 2015-03-18 'A vivid reminder of the extraordinary lives and times of those who once played the Great Game. Percy Sykes was one of the ablest, if most controversial, of these. A valuable addition to Great Game literature.' Peter Hopkirk 'A superbly researched and engaginly written biography. Sykes was a character whose exploits even John Buchan would have feared to invent.' Antony Beevor 'Antony Wynn has produced a well-researched and highly readable life of a character who, in his own day, astonished his contemporaries by his courage and his cheek.' John Ure - Times Literary Supplement 'Wynn's writing is clear and vigorous; he wields no ideological agenda - unless an underlying sympathy for Persians counts as such. ... an enjoyable and compelling account of a fascinating life.' Noel Malcolm - Sunday Telegraph 'Where Wynn excels is in his sense of place. He is very good at conjuring up the look of Kerman, Meshed and the Persian landscape. One also gets a strong sense of what it was like for servants of the Raj on the move, with their rubber baths, tent valises, tins of stewed fruit and jars of Bovril, also of their more exotic retinue of farrashes, syces and pish-khedmats.' Robert Irwin - Literary Review 'A well-researched, hard-nosed, and engaging biography.' Financial Times 'Antony Wynn's book is full of marvellous, half-believable tales of bluff and daring.' Sunday Telegraph Percy Sykes began his career with Army Intelligence in India. Their main concern was the threat to India of the Russian advances across Central Asia. In 1893 they sent Sykes into eastern Persia on the first of many expeditions. Always with his terrier and often with his sister or his wife, he rode over thousands of miles of unknown desert, marsh and mountain to map them and establish his network of informants, helped by a Persian prince whom he had met in the desert. Later, as consul in Meshed, Sykes used his wits to foil Russian attempts to take over northern Persia, the key to India. But when the First World War broke out it was Wassmuss - 'the German Lawrence' - who proved the greatest threat to Britain, as Sykes was sent alone to raise an army to defeat him. In the great Victorian tradition, the soldier-diplomat Sykes hunted gazelle with princes, studied Persian poetry, and sat at the feet of dervish masters. This study of Sykes' secret despatches over twenty-five turbulent years gives an unusual insight into the inner workings of Persia, which are little changed in the Iran of today. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Hunted Through Central Asia Pavel Stepanovich Nazarov, 1932 |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Taliban Narratives Thomas H. Johnson, Matthew DuPee, Wali Shaaker, 2017 Shines a light on the Taliban's propaganda arm and its impact on the course of the war in Afghanistan. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Eastern Approaches Fitzroy Maclean, 2009-09-22 70th Anniversary Edition with a New Foreword by Sunday Times Bestselling Author Simon Sebag Montefiore 'A classic' Observer | 'A legend' Washington Post | 'The best book you will read this year' Colonel Tim Collins Posted to Moscow as a young diplomat before the Second World War, Fitzroy Maclean travelled widely, with or without permission, in some of the wildest and remotest parts of the Soviet Union, then virtually closed to foreigners. In 1942 he fought as a founder member of the SAS in North Africa. There Maclean specialised in hair-raising commando raids behind enemy lines, including the daring and outrageous kidnapping of the German Consul in Axis-controlled Iraq. In 1943 he parachuted into German-occupied Yugoslavia as Winston Churchill's personal representative to Josip Broz Tito and remained there until 1945, all enemy attempts to capture him proving unsuccessful. Eastern Approaches is Maclean's classic, gripping account of the sybaritic delights of diplomatic life, the thrill of remote travel in the then-forbidden zones of Central Asia, and the violence and adventure of world-changing tours in North Africa and Yugoslavia. Maclean is the original British action hero and this is blistering reading. 'This book literally changed my life' Simon Sebag Montefiore 'A man of daring character' Winston Churchill 'An absorbing mixture of military adventure, political judgement, urbane wit, cool humour and surprising incident' Financial Times 'One of the bravest men in the British army, and one of the funniest' Ben Macintyre 'Entertaining, important, the model for James Bond' New York Times |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Imperial Twilight Stephen R. Platt, 2018-05-15 As China reclaims its position as a world power, Imperial Twilight looks back to tell the story of the country’s last age of ascendance and how it came to an end in the nineteenth-century Opium War. As one of the most potent turning points in the country’s modern history, the Opium War has since come to stand for everything that today’s China seeks to put behind it. In this dramatic, epic story, award-winning historian Stephen Platt sheds new light on the early attempts by Western traders and missionaries to “open” China even as China’s imperial rulers were struggling to manage their country’s decline and Confucian scholars grappled with how to use foreign trade to China’s advantage. The book paints an enduring portrait of an immensely profitable—and mostly peaceful—meeting of civilizations that was destined to be shattered by one of the most shockingly unjust wars in the annals of imperial history. Brimming with a fascinating cast of British, Chinese, and American characters, this riveting narrative of relations between China and the West has important implications for today’s uncertain and ever-changing political climate. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Setting the East Ablaze Peter Hopkirk, 2001 Peter Hopkirk's book tells for the first time the story of the Bolshevik attempt between the wars to set the East ablaze with the new gospel of Marxism. Lenin's dream was to liberate the whole of Asia, but his starting point was British India. A shadowy, undeclared war followed.Among the players in this new Great Game were British Indian intelligence officers and the professional revolutionaries of the Communist International. There were also Muslim visionaries and Chinese warlords - as well as a White Russian baron who roasted his Bolshevik captives alive. Here is an extraordinary tale of intrigue and treachery, barbarism and civil war, whose echoes continue to be heard in Central Asia today. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: The Fall of the Ottomans Eugene Rogan, 2015-03-10 A remarkably readable, judicious and well-researched account (Financial Times) of World War I in the Middle East By 1914 the powers of Europe were sliding inexorably toward war, and they pulled the Middle East along with them into one of the most destructive conflicts in human history. In The Fall of the Ottomans, award-winning historian Eugene Rogan brings the First World War and its immediate aftermath in the Middle East to vivid life, uncovering the often ignored story of the region's crucial role in the conflict. Unlike the static killing fields of the Western Front, the war in the Middle East was fast-moving and unpredictable, with the Turks inflicting decisive defeats on the Entente in Gallipoli, Mesopotamia, and Gaza before the tide of battle turned in the Allies' favor. The postwar settlement led to the partition of Ottoman lands, laying the groundwork for the ongoing conflicts that continue to plague the modern Arab world. A sweeping narrative of battles and political intrigue from Gallipoli to Arabia, The Fall of the Ottomans is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the Great War and the making of the modern Middle East. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Shooting Leave John Ure, 2009 Snow leopards and Cossacks can both be dangerous. But to young British officers in India in the nineteenth century there was only one thing more exciting than shooting wild game in the mountains and steppes of Central Asia, and that was spying out those uncharted lands and impeding the advance of Tsarist Russia towards the frontiers of the British Raj.When the two activities were combined in what was euphemistically called shooting leave adventures followed thick and fast.Shooting Leave tells the thrilling story of the dashing cavalry officers who volunteered for these adventures. They were individuals of talent and courage, but also of disturbing prejudice, aristocratic arrogance, missionary zeal or trigger-happy temperament. But whatever their specific task, one factor remained common to all officers sent out on covert and exploratory missions: they were expendable.Here they are brought to life as characters in their own right, as well as players in the Great Game.Praise for Sir John Ure's previous booksPilgrimage:Cheerful and engaging, rich in elegant prose and historical anecdote Sunday Times'Delightful... charts the appeal of nomadic life for generations of European travellers Daily Mail'An excellent collection of travel delicacies Daily TelegraphIn Search of Nomads:'An excellent collection of travel delicacies Sunday Telegraph'Ures book deserves a place in many saddlebags Sunday Times |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Captain in Calico George MacDonald Fraser, 2015-10-06 “Piracy’s tried-and-true hallmarks—treasure, treachery, intermittent romance and high-seas mutiny” from the Scottish author of the Flashman Papers series (The Wall Street Journal). George MacDonald Fraser was famed for his legendary series, featuring the incorrigible knave Harry Flashman. In the colorful standalone novel Captain in Calico, a never-before-published literary find, Fraser introduces another real-life anti-hero: Captain John Rackham, called “Calico Jack,” an illustrious eighteenth-century pirate who marauded the Caribbean seas. On a tranquil evening in the Bahamas, Calico Jack, long wanted on counts of piracy, makes a surprise appearance at the Governor’s residence and asks for a pardon. A deal is brokered after Jack reveals the motive for turning himself in: love. When he last set sail from the Bahamas two years ago, Jack left behind a beautiful fiancée, and he hopes to win her back. But while Jack was off pirating, his beloved has become betrothed to a new man—the governor himself. It doesn’t take long for this truth to come to light, and after embarking on a new romance with famous Irish pirate Anne Bonney, Jack is quickly transformed back into a thieving captain in calico. With his trademark picaresque style, Fraser draws readers into the wild west of the British empire, where black sails prowl the waters and redemption can be found in the most unexpected places. “[An] energetic tale of piracy and peril . . . Suspenseful.” —Publishers Weekly |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Collision of Empires Prit Buttar, 2014-06-20 Collision of Empires is the first major historical work on the Eastern Front during World War I since the 1970s. One of the primary triggers of the outbreak of World War I was undoubtedly the myriad alliances and suspicions that existed between the Russian, German, and Austro-Hungarian empires in the early 20th century. Yet much of the actual fighting between these nations has been largely forgotten in the West. Driven by first-hand accounts and detailed archival research, Collision of Empires seeks to correct this imbalance. The first in a four-book series on the Eastern Front in World War I, Prit Buttar's dynamic retelling examines the tumultuous events of the first year of the war and reveals the chaos and destruction that reigned when three powerful empires collided. A war that was initially seen by all three powers as a welcome opportunity to address both internal and external issues would ultimately bring about the downfall of them all. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: The Last Days of the Incas Kim MacQuarrie, 2008-06-17 Documents the epic conquest of the Inca Empire as well as the decades-long insurgency waged by the Incas against the Conquistadors, in a narrative history that is partially drawn from the storytelling traditions of the Peruvian Amazon Yora people. Reprint. 20,000 first printing. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Josiah the Great: The True Story of The Man Who Would Be King Ben Macintyre, 2012-02-02 The amazing tale of a resourceful and unscrupulous early-19th-century American adventurer who forges his own kingdom in the wilds of Afghanistan. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Winning the Investment Marathon H. Bradlee Perry, 1999 |
| the great game peter hopkirk: The Authors XI Bloomsbury Publishing, 2013-06-06 Cricket has perhaps held more writers in its thrall than any other sport: many excellent books have been written about it, and many great authors have played it. The Authors Cricket Club used to play regularly against teams made up of Publishers and Actors. They last played in 1912, and include among their alumni such greats as PG Wodehouse, Arthur Conan Doyle and JM Barrie. A hundred years on from their last match, a team of modern-day authors has been assembled to continue this fine literary and sporting tradition in a nationwide tour in search of the perfect day's cricket. The Authors XI is the story of their season. Over the course of a summer they played over a dozen matches, each one carefully chosen for capturing an aspect of cricket, in some of England's most spectacular and historic grounds, against a wide range of opponents. Each player contributes a chapter about one of their fixtures, using a match report as a starting point for an essay on cricket and its appeal, both historically and today. From Matthew Parker on cricket and empire, and Kamila Shamsie on the women's game, to Tom Holland on cricket and ageing, and Thomas Penn on cricket and history, this is an engaging look at cricket's enduring appeal. Further chapters from other team members examine issues such as class, empire, and sport and the stage. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Return of a King William Dalrymple, 2013-02-04 SHORTLISTED FOR THE SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE 2013 'As taut and richly embroidered as a great novel . . . a masterpiece' Sunday Telegraph 'Dazzling' Sunday Times | 'Magnificent' Guardian | 'Sparkling' Daily Telegraph A towering history of the first Afghan War by bestselling historian William Dalrymple. In the spring of 1839, Britain invaded Afghanistan for the first time. Nearly 20,000 British and East India Company troops poured through the high mountain passes and re-established on the throne Shah Shuja ul-Mulk. On the way in, the British faced little resistance. But after two years of occupation, the Afghan people rose in answer to the call for jihad and the country exploded into violent rebellion. The First Anglo-Afghan War ended in Britain's greatest military humiliation of the nineteenth century: an entire army of the then most powerful nation in the world ambushed in retreat and utterly routed by poorly equipped tribesmen. Using a range of forgotten Afghan and Indian sources, William Dalrymple's masterful retelling of Britain's greatest imperial disaster is a powerful parable of colonial ambition and cultural collision, folly and hubris. Return of a King is history at its most urgent and important. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Great Game in the Buddhist Himalayas Phunchok Stobdan, 2019-10-21 There is a new 'great game' being played in the Buddhist Himalayas between India, China and Tibet, which makes for a crucial third player. Together, they are leveraging their influence with the Buddhist communities to create strategic dominance, with varying degrees of success. China's 'Buddhist diplomacy' has focused on Nepal and Bhutan, and the Indian Himalayan regions of Ladakh, Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim, which have sizeable Buddhist populations and are vulnerable to this influence. The crisis in Doklam brought into focus what will be one of the most difficult issues to unfold in the Himalayas in future: India's insufficient ability to deal with China only through the prism of military power. If Xi Jinping, who is known to be working towards a resolution of the Tibet question, succeeds, and the Dalai Lama does indeed return to Tibet, how will it impact Indian interests in the Buddhist Himalayas? If the Tibet issue remains unresolved, how will India and China deal with and leverage the sectarian strife that is likely to intensify in a post-Dalai Lama world? The Great Game in the Buddhist Himalayas includes several unknown insights into the India-China, India-Tibet and China-Tibet relationships. It reads like a geopolitical thriller, taking the reader through the intricacies of reincarnation politics, competing spheres of sacred influence, and monastic and sectarian allegiances that will keep the Himalayas on edge for years to come. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Lost Enlightenment S. Frederick Starr, 2015-06-02 The forgotten story of Central Asia's enlightenment—its rise, fall, and enduring legacy In this sweeping and richly illustrated history, S. Frederick Starr tells the fascinating but largely unknown story of Central Asia's medieval enlightenment through the eventful lives and astonishing accomplishments of its greatest minds—remarkable figures who built a bridge to the modern world. Because nearly all of these figures wrote in Arabic, they were long assumed to have been Arabs. In fact, they were from Central Asia—drawn from the Persianate and Turkic peoples of a region that today extends from Kazakhstan southward through Afghanistan, and from the easternmost province of Iran through Xinjiang, China. Lost Enlightenment recounts how, between the years 800 and 1200, Central Asia led the world in trade and economic development, the size and sophistication of its cities, the refinement of its arts, and, above all, in the advancement of knowledge in many fields. Central Asians achieved signal breakthroughs in astronomy, mathematics, geology, medicine, chemistry, music, social science, philosophy, and theology, among other subjects. They gave algebra its name, calculated the earth's diameter with unprecedented precision, wrote the books that later defined European medicine, and penned some of the world's greatest poetry. One scholar, working in Afghanistan, even predicted the existence of North and South America—five centuries before Columbus. Rarely in history has a more impressive group of polymaths appeared at one place and time. No wonder that their writings influenced European culture from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas down to the scientific revolution, and had a similarly deep impact in India and much of Asia. Lost Enlightenment chronicles this forgotten age of achievement, seeks to explain its rise, and explores the competing theories about the cause of its eventual demise. Informed by the latest scholarship yet written in a lively and accessible style, this is a book that will surprise general readers and specialists alike. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Who Owns History? Eric Foner, 2003-04-16 A thought-provoking new book from one of America's finest historians History, wrote James Baldwin, does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do. Rarely has Baldwin's insight been more forcefully confirmed than during the past few decades. History has become a matter of public controversy, as Americans clash over such things as museum presentations, the flying of the Confederate flag, or reparations for slavery. So whose history is being written? Who owns it? In Who Owns History?, Eric Foner proposes his answer to these and other questions about the historian's relationship to the world of the past and future. He reconsiders his own earlier ideas and those of the pathbreaking Richard Hofstadter. He also examines international changes during the past two decades--globalization, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of apartheid in South Africa--and their effects on historical consciousness. He concludes with considerations of the enduring, but often misunderstood, legacies of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. This is a provocative, even controversial, study of the reasons we care about history--or should. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: The Shadow of the Great Game Narendra Singh Sarila, 2017-08-10 The untold story of India's Partition. The partition of India in 1947 was the only way to contain intractable religious differences as the subcontinent moved towards independence - or so the story goes. But this dramatic new history reveals previously overlooked links between British strategic interests - in the oil wells of the Middle East and maintaining access to its Indian Ocean territories - and partition. Narendra Singh Sarela reveals here how hte Great Gane against the Soviet Union cast a long shadow. The top-secret documentary evidence unearthed by the author sheds new light on several prominent figures, including Gandhi, Jinnah, Mountbatten, Churchill, Attlee, Wavell and Nerhu. This radical reassessment of one of the key events in British colonial history is important in itself, but its claim that many of the roots of Islamic terrorism sweeping the world today lie in the partition of India has much wider implications. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Wild Bill Donovan Douglas Waller, 2012-02-21 Entertaining history...Donovan was a combination of bold innovator and imprudent rule bender, which made him not only a remarkable wartime leader but also an extraordinary figure in American history (The New York Times Book Review). He was one of America's most exciting and secretive generals--the man Franklin Roosevelt made his top spy in World War II. A mythic figure whose legacy is still intensely debated, Wild Bill Donovan was director of the Office of Strategic Services (the country's first national intelligence agency) and the father of today's CIA. Donovan introduced the nation to the dark arts of covert warfare on a scale it had never seen before. Now, veteran journalist Douglas Waller has mined government and private archives throughout the United States and England, drawn on thousands of pages of recently declassified documents, and interviewed scores of Donovan's relatives, friends, and associates to produce a riveting biography of one of the most powerful men in modern espionage. William Joseph Donovan's life was packed with personal drama. The son of poor Irish Catholic parents, he married into Protestant wealth and fought heroically in World War I, where he earned the nickname Wild Bill for his intense leadership and the Medal of Honor for his heroism. After the war he made millions as a Republican lawyer on Wall Street until FDR, a Democrat, tapped him to be his strategic intelligence chief. A charismatic leader, Donovan was revered by his secret agents. Yet at times he was reckless--risking his life unnecessarily in war zones, engaging in extramarital affairs that became fodder for his political enemies--and he endured heartbreaking tragedy when family members died at young ages. Wild Bill Donovan reads like an action-packed spy thriller, with stories of daring young men and women in his OSS sneaking behind enemy lines for sabotage, breaking into Washington embassies to steal secrets, plotting to topple Adolf Hitler, and suffering brutal torture or death when they were captured by the Gestapo. It is also a tale of political intrigue, of infighting at the highest levels of government, of powerful men pitted against one another. Donovan fought enemies at home as often as the Axis abroad. Generals in the Pentagon plotted against him. J. Edgar Hoover had FBI agents dig up dirt on him. Donovan stole secrets from the Soviets before the dawn of the Cold War and had intense battles with Winston Churchill and British spy chiefs over foreign turf. Separating fact from fiction, Waller investigates the successes and the occasional spectacular failures of Donovan's intelligence career. It makes for a gripping and revealing portrait of this most controversial spymaster. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: The Proud Tower Barbara Tuchman, 2014-06-05 Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower is a haunting account of Britain on the cusp of total war - reissued for the 2014 Centenary. The last government in the Western world to possess all the attributes of aristocracy in working condition took office in England in June of 1895 . . . In this now classic work, Pulitzer prize-winning historian Barbara Tuchman explores the quarter century leading up to the First World War, from the dying embers of the British aristocracy to the fitful eruptions of the anarchist movement. She provides a compelling portrait of the key figures and conflicting ideologies of this time, giving an intimate view of an epoch that was soon to be swept away by the tide of history. 'Her intention is to make the age alive for us, and in that she abundantly succeeds' Daily Telegraph 'Tuchman has a gift of recreating a period and a mood by an inspired selection of detail and sheer narrative sweep. A volcano of a book' Evening Standard 'Impeccable scholarship and literary polish. Impossible to read without pleasure and admiration' New York Times Barbara Tuchman achieved prominence as a historian with The Zimmerman Telegram and international fame with the Pulitzer-Prize winning The Guns of August. She is also the author of Stilwell and the American Experience in China (also awarded the Pulitzer Prize), A Distant Mirror and The March of Folly. She died in 1989. The Guns of August and The Zimmerman Telegram are published by Penguin. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Great Game to 9/11 Michael Rouland, 2014 |
| the great game peter hopkirk: Lady Sale's Afghanistan Florentia Sale, 2009-07 The hard road back to India There are few books that can truly be said to be unique, but this is one. Afghanistan has been a battleground since man has occupied its hostile landscape and others have sought to control it as the corridor between great continents. The British-conquerors of the Indian sub-continent-have found themselves fruitlessly bleeding into its dry soil on several occasions. The first was in the mid-nineteenth century as they attempted to secure an unpopular puppet ruler on its throne. Error compounded error as Elphinstone, the British army's incompetent commander, compromised his strategic position in the capital and then, to extricate himself, instigated a forced retreat in winter as hostile tribesmen pressed in on all sides. History knows that this resulted in the annihilation of the entire army. Only a handful of people survived. One of these was Lady Sale, the formidable wife of Robert Sale whose brigade was fighting its own war locked inside Jellalabad. Incredibly Lady Sale kept a daily diary of her experience of the entire appalling catastrophe. It illuminates the events of the retreat uniquely and provides an inspiring view of a woman rising to the demands of extreme adversity that has no parallels. |
| the great game peter hopkirk: The Great Game Peter Hopkirk, 1990-05 This is an account of the encounter last century between the British in India and Tsarist Russia in Central Asia which became known as the Great Game. When the encounter began the frontiers of Russia and British India lay some 2000 apart. By the end, the gap had shrunk in places to 20 miles. As Russia pushed forward her frontiers young officers found the fulfilment of their dreams in the chance to escape garrison life and find promotion and glory in the Caucasus, China and Tibet. |
GREAT Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of GREAT is notably large in size : huge. How to use great in a sentence.
1202 Synonyms & Antonyms for GREAT - Thesaurus.com
Find 1202 different ways to say GREAT, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at …
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Synonyms for GREAT: skillful, good, skilled, adept, experienced, proficient, expert, practiced; Antonyms of …
GREAT Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
Great definition: unusually or comparatively large in size or dimensions.. See examples of GREAT …
Great - Definition, Meaning & Synonyms - Vocabulary.com
As an adjective great describes things that are very good, large, or important — like a great movie, a great forest, …
GREAT Definition & Meaning - Merriam-Webster
The meaning of GREAT is notably large in size : huge. How to use great in a sentence.
1202 Synonyms & Antonyms for GREAT - Thesaurus.com
Find 1202 different ways to say GREAT, along with antonyms, related words, and example sentences at Thesaurus.com.
GREAT Synonyms: 711 Similar and Opposite Words - Merriam-Webster
Synonyms for GREAT: skillful, good, skilled, adept, experienced, proficient, expert, practiced; Antonyms of GREAT: weak, unable, amateur, incapable, inexperienced, unprofessional, …
GREAT Definition & Meaning | Dictionary.com
Great definition: unusually or comparatively large in size or dimensions.. See examples of GREAT used in a sentence.
Great - Definition, Meaning & Synonyms - Vocabulary.com
As an adjective great describes things that are very good, large, or important — like a great movie, a great forest, or a great battle that changed the course of a war.
GREAT | English meaning - Cambridge Dictionary
GREAT definition: 1. large in amount, size, or degree: 2. used in names, especially to mean large or important: 3…. Learn more.
GREAT | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary
GREAT meaning: 1. large in amount, size, or degree: 2. used in names, especially to mean large or important: 3…. Learn more.
111 Words to Use Instead of Great (Infographic) - GrammarCheck
Oct 22, 2016 · This is a visual list of 111 alternatives for the word 'Great'. Take a look at this infographic to see 111 of the best, most creative synonyms and similar expressions for the …
great adjective - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage …
Definition of great adjective in Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Meaning, pronunciation, picture, example sentences, grammar, usage notes, synonyms and more. Toggle navigation
Meaning of great – Learner’s Dictionary - Cambridge Dictionary
GREAT definition: 1. very good: 2. important or famous: 3. large in amount, size, or degree: . Learn more.
