In the 19th century, in the lonely passes of Central Asia, Czarist Russia and Victorian England grappled in deadly embrace. Players called it "the Great Game."

"Game" it may have been, but as Russia pushed south, Britain countered with military force and espionage. The British feared for India.

The Great Game brings back Kipling and KIM. Like Kipling, Hopkirk writes with unabashed relish of spies, soldiers, explorers and travelers, both British and Russian, who waged the first cold war.

"Hopkirk's real-life thriller, first published in Great Britain in 1990 as The Great Game: on Secret Service in High Asia (John Murray Ltd.), tells the story of the 19th-century imperial struggle between agents of Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia for strategic and economic supremacy over an area stretching from the Caucasus to China. Includes 24 pages of illustrations." Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

"An incredible tale of high adventure and political intrigue." Publishers Weekly

THE GREATGAME: THE EPIC STORY BEHIND TODAY'S HEADLINES

Peter Hopkirk's spellbinding account of the great imperial struggle for supremacy in Central Asoa has been hailed as essential reading with that era's legacy playing itself out today.

The Great Game between Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia was fought across desolate terrain from the Caucasus to China, over the lonely passes of the Parmirs and Karakorams, in the blazing Kerman and Helmund deserts, and through the caravan towns of the old Silk Road-both powers scrambling to control access to the riches of India and the East. When play first began, the frontiers of Russia and British India lay 2000 miles apart; by the end, this distance had shrunk to twenty miles at some points. Now, in the vacuum left by the disintegration of the Soviet Union, there is once again talk of Russian soldiers "dipping their toes in the Indian Ocean."

The Washington Post has said that "every story Peter Hopkirk touches is totally engrossing." In this gripping narrative he recounts a breathtaking tale of espionage and treachery through the actual experiences of its colorful characters. Based on meticulous scholarship and on-the-spot research, this is the history at the core of today's geopolitics.

PETER HOPKIRK is the author of Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire, Trespassers on the Roof of the World: The Race for Lhasa, and two other books. A staff writer for The Times of London for nineteen years, five as its chief reporter, he is a Middle and Far East specialist.