Visits to High Tartary, Yarkand and Kashgar

Fülszöveg

Visits to High Tartary, Yarkand and
Kashgar, written over a century ago,
tells the story of a British tea-planter,
Robert Shaw, who found himself caught
up in the Great Game. So christened by
one of its earliest players, the Great
Game grew out of intense Anglo-
Russian rivalry in Asia during the
nineteenth century. The shadowy
contest began in earnest in the 1830s
when the two powers sought to extend
their frontiers and influence into Central
Asia. By the 1860s and 1870s Britain
and Russia found themselves all but
facing each other across the unmapped
deserts and unexplored passes of the
region.
According to Shaw's own account, it
was the prospect of 'opening up' Central
Asia as a market for Indian tea, spiced
with the possibility of being the first
Englishman to visit the almost
legendary towns of Chinese Turkistan,
that decided him, in 1868, to make his
now celebrated journey to Yarkand and
Kashgar. Whatever his original
intentions, his foray... Tovább

Fülszöveg

Visits to High Tartary, Yarkand and
Kashgar, written over a century ago,
tells the story of a British tea-planter,
Robert Shaw, who found himself caught
up in the Great Game. So christened by
one of its earliest players, the Great
Game grew out of intense Anglo-
Russian rivalry in Asia during the
nineteenth century. The shadowy
contest began in earnest in the 1830s
when the two powers sought to extend
their frontiers and influence into Central
Asia. By the 1860s and 1870s Britain
and Russia found themselves all but
facing each other across the unmapped
deserts and unexplored passes of the
region.
According to Shaw's own account, it
was the prospect of 'opening up' Central
Asia as a market for Indian tea, spiced
with the possibility of being the first
Englishman to visit the almost
legendary towns of Chinese Turkistan,
that decided him, in 1868, to make his
now celebrated journey to Yarkand and
Kashgar. Whatever his original
intentions, his foray northwards
through the Karakoram was to have far
wider implications than simply trade.
In addition to the report submitted to
his government, Shaw wrote this lively
and detailed account, describing the
course and events of his journey as well
as the bloody warfare conducted by the
autocrats of the Turkic kingdoms and
the elaborate social rituals of their
élites.
First published in 1871, Visits to
High Tartary is now reprinted with the
addition of an Introduction by Petpr
Hopkirk, author of Foreign Devils on
the Silk Road, Trespassers on the Roof
of the World, and Setting the East
Ablaze. Vissza