We have updated our Privacy Policy Please take a moment to review it. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy.

Setting the East Ablaze

ebook / ISBN-13: 9781848547254

Price: £10.99

ON SALE: 16th February 2012

Genre: Humanities / History / Regional & National History / Asian History

Select a format:

Paperback

Disclosure: If you buy products using the retailer buttons above, we may earn a commission from the retailers you visit.

‘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.

What's Inside

Read More Read Less

Reviews

'The stuff of a dozen adventure movies . . . everything a ripping good yarn should be'
New York Times
'A classic example of truth outpacing fiction'
Times Literary Supplement