This book deals with the 19th century Anglo-Russian Great Game played out on the territorial chessboard of eastern and north-eastern parts of the waning Persian empire. The Great Game itself has been written about extensively, but never from a Persian angle and from the point of view of the local players in that game. Looking at the territorial consequences of the Great Game for the local players is a unique approach, which deserves a special place in the studies of history, geography, politics and geopolitics of the age of modernity.

Since the outbreak of the Pacific War, British India had been taken as the main logistic base for China's war against the Japanese. Chinese soldiers, government officials, professionals, and merchants flocked into India for training, business opportunities, retreat, and rehabilitation. This book is about how the activities of the Chinese sojourners in wartime India caused great concerns to the British colonial regime and the Chinese Nationalist government alike and how these sojourners responded to the surveillance, discipline, and check imposed by the governments. This book provides a subaltern perspective on the history of modern India-China relations that has been dominated by accounts of elite cultural interaction and geopolitical machination.

Uses political practices and a socially-oriented approach to explain imperial formation under the Qajars in early nineteenth-century Iran.

The Culture — a human/machine symbiotic society — has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh Jernau Morat Gurgeh. The Player of Games. Master of every board, computer and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game. . . a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor. Mocked, blackmailed, almost murdered, Gurgeh accepts the game, and with it the challenge of his life — and very possibly his death. The Culture Series Consider Phlebas The Player of Games Use of Weapons The State of the Art Excession Inversions Look to Windward Matter Surface Detail The Hydrogen Sonata

For nearly a century the two most powerful nations on earth - Victorian Britain and Tsarist Russia - fought a secret war in the lonely passes and deserts of Central Asia. Those engaged in this shadowy struggle called it 'The Great Game', a phrase immortalized in Kipling's Kim. When play firstbegan the two rival empires lay nearly 2,000 miles apart. By the end, some Russian outposts were within 20 miles of India.This book tells the story of the Great Game through the exploits of the young officers, both British and Russian, who risked their lives playing it. Disguised as holy men or native horsetraders, they mapped secret passes, gathered intelligence, and sought the allegiance of powerful khans. Some neverreturned.

Alex Wolff canvasses the globe and travels to 16 different countries (and 10 states in the U.S.) to find out exactly why basketball has become a worldwide phenomenon. Whether it's in a pick-up game on the Royal court in Bhutan, in the heart of a former female college player of the year turned cloistered nun, in the tragedy of the legendary junior national team in war torn Yugoslavia, or in the life's work of one of the greatest players to ever play in the NBA, Alex Wolff discovers that basketball can define an individual, a race, a culture, and in some instances even a country. Fusing John Feinstein's talent for finding the human drama behind sport with Bill Bryson's travelogue style, Wolff shows how the power and love of basketball extends to the four corners of the earth and engages people of all cultures, races, genders, and generations.

This book examines the evolution of European-American relations with the Middle East since 1945. Placing the current transatlantic debates on the Middle East into a broader context, this work analyses how, why, and to what extent European and US roles, interests, threat perceptions, and policy attitudes in the region have changed, relating to both the region as a whole and the two main issues analysed: Gulf Security and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. The contributors then go on to discuss the implications of these developments for Western policymaking. The volume makes four key contributions. First, it examines the subject matter from a truly transatlantic perspective, with all chapters adopting a bi- or multilateral approach, taking into account the views from both the US and individual European countries or the EC/EU collectively. Second, the book takes a long-term view, covering a series of crises and developments over the past six decades. Third, it has a systematic structure, with the predominantly chronological order of the chapters being geared towards depicting trends and evolutions with regard to the key themes of the book. Finally, the book builds bridges between historians and political scientists/analysts, as well as between experts of transatlantic relations and Middle East scholars. This book will be of great interest to students of transatlantic relations, the Middle East, US foreign policy, European politics, international history and IR in general. Daniel Möckli is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich. He is also the editor of CSS Analyses in Security Policy. Victor Mauer is Deputy Director and Head of Research of the Center for Security Studies (CSS), ETH Zurich, and Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences and Humanities at ETH Zurich.

Presents a thematically indexed bibliography devoted to Afghanistan. Following the pattern established by one of its major data sources, viz, the acclaimed Index Islamicus, both journal articles and book publications are included and indexed.

In 1846, the British created the state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) - popularly called "Kashmir" - and then quickly sold this prized region to the wily and powerful Raja, Gulab Singh. Intriguingly, had they retained it, the India-Pakistan dispute over possession of the state may never have arisen, but Britain's concerns lay elsewhere -- expansionist Russia, beguiling Tibet and unstable China "circling" J&K -- and their agents played the 'Great Game' in Afghanistan and 'Turkistan'. Snedden contextualizes the geo-strategic and historical circumstances surrounding the British decision to relinquish prestigious 'Kashmir', and explains how they and four Dogra maharajas consolidated and controlled J&K subsequently. He details what comprised this diverse princely state with distant borders and disunified peoples and explains the Maharaja of J&K's controversial accession to India on 26 October 1947 - and its unintended consequences. Snedden weaves a compelling narrative that frames the Kashmir dispute, explains why it continues, and assesses what it means politically and administratively for the divided peoples of J&K and their undecided futures.

“The Complete Legends of The Big Game” is an amazing journey into an ancient universe and the attempt of two spirits to effect its future for Good or Evil...through a game. An inhabited world is created as a game piece. Fighter for Chaos (Fighter) strives to destroy it ...and destroy it... and destroy it again...until he wins the game. New creatures are formed by the Spirit of Good (Spirit) to combat lethal treachery, but Fighter finds repeated methods to ruin a developing earth. Fighter exploits all the violent tendencies of early humans to wreck it while Spirit’s supporters bemoan Spirit’s apparently inept play calling and sad results. Some supporters of Team Good will not live to tell the tale, but Spirit is counting on a secret weapon if it can get into the game before the 4th Quarter ...Legend IV. Animals and humans unite for a world-changing event on the field of play that cannot be anticipated. The Big Game must be won to save the universe! (Note: This book is a compilation and rewrite of two books with nearly the same name. This book is better!)