Spying for Empire: The Great Game in Central and South Asia, 1757-1947

• An engrossing study of the struggle for imperial influence in central Asia
• Fascinating analysis of how the British intelligence network worked
• New insights into the work of individual agents and the politics that governed them

‘The Great Game’ was the struggle between Russia and Britain for imperial influence over southern and central Asia, immortalised by Rudyard Kipling in his novel Kim. For the British, the threat to India’s frontiers compelled them to dispatch diplomats, or more clandestine agents, to survey, map and monitor the approaches to the Indian subcontinent. Anxieties about Russian ambitions in central Asia were magnified by the discovery of military plans and the arrival of ‘shooting parties’ and ‘scientific explorers’ on the mountains adjacent to India’s northern border.
The British faced major problems compounded by the unresolved status and intractability of Afghanistan, the interception of agents, and the division of opinion in British military and political circles about the real or imagined nature of the Russian threat to India. The situation was further complicated by the instability of the Indian border area, a region through which British and Indian troops would need to operate in wartime, but which was inhabited by bellicose tribesmen who fought the imposition of British rule every step of the way.
In this meticulously researched study Rob Johnson re-examines the intricate inner-workings of the British intelligence network, revealing in depth for the first time its true function, scale and achievements. In doing so he pays tribute to the dangerous work carried out by a relatively small number of British and Asian agents, and provides important new insights into the intriguing world of intelligence-gathering and the politics of Empire from 1757 to 1947.