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Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin’s Dream of an Empire in Asia
£9.60£10.40 (-8%)
‘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.
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Additional information
| Publisher | John Murray, Reprint edition (27 Mar. 2006) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 272 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 9780719564505 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0719564505 |
| Dimensions | 12.7 x 1.52 x 19.69 cm |
by M. Baerends
‘Setting the East Ablaze’ completes Peter Hopkirk’s Central Asian trilogy. Kicked off in ‘the Great Game’ (which starts at around 1800 and ends with the Anglo-Russian detente just before World War I), and followed by ‘On Secret Service East of Constantinople’ (German meddling in the East in World War I and the events in the Caucasus up to about 1918), this final part of the trilogy takes off where ‘On Secret Service’ left, discussing events in Central Asia proper (east of the Caspian) from about 1918 onwards.
As one would expect from Hopkirk, this is again a great read. Hopkirk has a knack for telling good stories that, together, provide an excellent historic overview of this volatile region. The characters populating this book include a British secret service agent who gets himself hired by the Cheka, an insanely bloodthirsty buddhist Russian baron who manages to conquer Mongolia with his private army, the fickle Afghan king, the former Ottoman dictator Enver Pasha who embarked on a second career in Central Asia (hired by the Russians to defuse muslim uprisings and then double crossing them and joining the rebellion), the octogenarian Emir of Bokhara and his giggling harem girls, Indian revolutionaries ending up in Bolshevik training camps in the deserts of Central Asia and many more, including, interestingly, large amounts of mainly Austro-Hungarian Prisoners-of-War who actually came to be a significant factor in the local military equation during the chaotic times just after the Russian Revolution.
Despite all the bloodshed and unbelievable cruelty, in the end it all came to nothing: the East was never set ablaze in the way Lenin intended (the ‘toilers of the East’ were so busy toiling they apparently had no time to listen to inflammatory Marxist rants), the Russians basically re-established control of what was already theirs in Tsarist times, and the English just gave away India after having spent so much effort on ‘forward defence’ in Central Asia of this supposedly crucial part of their Empire.
by S. Lelarge
Peter Hopkirk is a master of the history of Central Asia and nobody better tells the story of those explorers, spies, adventurers, madmen and conquerors who roamed that part of the world.
1918: As the Russian Revolution takes place and the Soviets come to power, the Great Game between Britain and Russia is about to resume for the control of India throughout the first part of the 20th century, unfolding into events that have shaped today’s world.
Thrilling read!
by Mr. S. Taylor
Loved this book because I enjoy the Twentieth Century as a period and the Russian Revolutionary period In particular.
The book highlights some little explored areas of the Central Asian experience of the Revolution and how UK sought to disrupt as much as possible
Some amazing individual stories burst from its pages.
Well written and well worth reading
by b frank
At times it was necessary to remind ones self this was reality and not a spy novel.
A well written and fascinating account of intrigue, skullduggery and barbarism in a part of the world still in the grip of despots and tyrants.
This and the Great Game by the same author I thoroughly recommend to those interested in the detail of this place and time.
by Cllr Chris Burke MBA
The closing chapters of the “Great Game” are told here with great panache and not a little quiet pride in the players of this remarkable story. Ian Fleming’s brother does appear alongside the people who safeguarded British interests in India. The stories of Lenin, Stalin and Hitler appear in context alongside some other equally brutal would be game changers. A particularly evil Wite Russian who enabled the rape, murder and torture of those thousands of innocents he encountered certainly helps us to understand where Putin came from in the modern age.
A remarkable book in it’s own right but even more impressive when read as part of a series of Peter Hopkins books dealing with India and Russia, an exceptional read I have to say.
by Matyas Szeli
Great and exciting book! I love history, read a lot, fascinated by the revolution and the Russian Civil War, but these stories were completely new for me, the setting, the events are amazing, most of the times it felt like I’m reading a spy-novel. I’m pretty sure I’m going to read more from Peter Hopkirk sooner than later! The only flaw of the book is it’s length, I could have read a couple of hundred pages more!
by Maecenas13
Although not quite reaching the heights of The Great Game by the same author, this is a highly readable and entertaining account of the machinations of Russia and Britain in Central Asia during the inter-war years. There are some very well drawn portraits of the colourful characters who made the most of the chaos of the Russian civil war after the Bolshevik revolution: cunning Borodin, bloodthirsty Baron Ungern Sternberg, daring Enver Pasha, plucky Colonel Bailey, ‘Big Horse’ Ma, the Chinese Muslim warlord. Combined with a brisk narrative that crackles along, it makes for a great read.
For anyone interested in Xinjiang (Sinkiang, Chinese/Eastern Turkestan) this is also an interesting book and underlines why China is so sensitive about the region today.
by Joe black
What a cracking good read it kept me up most nights unable to put it down.