A monumental and readable assessment of the Great Game that makes the Russian side clearly intelligible in relation to the British. -- Wm. Roger Louis, University of Texas at Austin Sergeev is evenhanded in his definition of the game, in his delineation of its stages, and in his ability to view the game in its full context. It is unlikely that any other scholar of the Great Game displays Sergeev's virtuosity with primary sources across several languages and from diverse archives. -- Bruce W. Menning, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College

The Great Game, 1856-1907 presents a new view of the British-Russian competition for dominance in Central Asia in the second half of the nineteenth century. Evgeny Sergeev offers a complex and novel point of view by synthesizing official collections of documents, parliamentary papers, political pamphlets, memoirs, contemporary journalism, and guidebooks from unpublished and less studied primary sources in Russian, British, Indian, Georgian, Uzbek, and Turkmen archives. His efforts amplify our knowledge of Russia by considering the important influences of local Asian powers. Ultimately, this book disputes the characterization of the Great Game as a proto-Cold War between East and West. By relating it to other regional actors, Sergeev creates a more accurate view of the game's impact on later wars and on the shape of post-World War I Asia.