"The world's oldest established imperial rivalry had its start during the Napoleonic age when British agents came upon the tracks of Russian rivals in snowbound Tibet, and then again in mythic Bokhara, deep in Central Asia. Was the Tsar planning to invade India, or even worse, was Russia bent on global dominion? To foil these real or imagined schemes, the British twice invaded Afghanistan, and in 1904 dispatched an army to Lhasa to check Tsarist designs on Tibet." "This was classic Great Game, which took on fresh life after the Russian Revolution and as Americans joined in, and which continues today in the covert struggle for mastery of the Caspian Sea and its oil riches. The whole story is here retold in a flowing narrative crammed with revealing detail, drawing on newly opened archives and recent research, a canvas filled with memorable men and women, taking the reader over Himalayan passes and through the world's deadliest deserts."--BOOK JACKET.