![]() ![]() The Great Game ended in 1907 with an Anglo-Russian pact, but as Hopkirk notes in a foreword, a new imperialist rivalry is underway in Central Asia, pitting the U.S. The Great Game, as the Anglo-Russian struggle in Central Asia was called, unfolds in Hopkirk's ( Setting the East Ablaze ) intricate narrative as an incredible tale of high adventure and political intrigue, conveyed here through the exploits of Cossacks, Muslim guerrillas, courageous travelers, spies, mapmakers and soldiers. In 1880, after bloody fighting, the British eradicated Russian influence in Afghanistan and established a buffer state. Fearing a Russian invasion, the British rulers of India sent English spies disguised as holy men to find out what the Russians were up to. Petersburg again cast a covetous eye southward on India. But 70 years later a succession of ambitious czars had crushed the Muslim peoples of Central Asia, and confident St. And after the billions of American taxpayers dollars that were funneled into the anti-Soviet struggle in the 1980s, only to have the enterprise degrade into a squalid civil war among the. It was hastily recalled upon his assassination. Half-mad Russian czar Paul I dispatched an invasion force to India in 1801. ![]()
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