SETTING THE EAST ABLAZE

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.

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!

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 possibleSome amazing individual stories burst from its pages.Well written and well worth reading

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.

What a cracking good read it kept me up most nights unable to put it down.