Small players of the Great Game

"This book deals with the nineteenth-century Anglo-Russian Great Game played out on the territorial chessboard of eastern and northeastern 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." "Attention is paid in this work to the impact of the age-old rivalries between local dynasties such as the Khozeimehs of Khorasan (of Iran) and Abdalis of Afghanistan on shaping the global structure of the Great Game itself and on the political geograph of West Asia. The work presents a study of the nineteenth-century Anglo-Russian games of geopolitics that have shaped today's political geography of West Asia and the evolution of the international boundaries between Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asian republics. This study reveals how, through the agency of Britain and Russia, the state of Afghanistan and the Russian provinces of Central Asia were created out of the northeastern provinces of the Persian Empire."--Jacket.