Publication of the book: Sur l'échiquier du Grand Jeu. Secret agents and adventurers (XIXth-XXIst centuries)

The CREE is pleased to announce the publication of the book written by Taline Ter Minassian, Sur l'échiquier du Grand Jeu. Agents secrets et aventuriers (XIXe-XXIe siècles), éditions Nouveau Monde, 2023.

This book embraces two centuries of the Grand Jeu, the ongoing confrontation between continental Russia and the Anglo-American maritime powers for control of the Caucasus, Iran, Central Asia and, at the center of the chessboard, Afghanistan. Having become strategic zones of influence, these regions attract secret agents, spies and adventurers.

BOOK DESCRIPTION

This book embraces two centuries of the Grand Game, of permanent confrontation between continental Russia and the Anglo-American maritime powers for control of the Caucasus, Iran, Central Asia and, at the center of the chessboard, Afghanistan. Having become strategic zones of influence, these regions attracted secret agents, spies and adventurers.

With the Khyber Pass, the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas, the Pamirs and the Caucasus, or the harsh Taklamakan desert as a sumptuous backdrop, Taline Ter Minassian follows the trail of characters whose paths often diverge from the grand designs of states. On foot, on horseback, on donkey, mule or camel, by car and sometimes by plane, under various guises (diplomat, merchant, archaeologist, engineer, monk), these men are above all adventurers, and their destinies always have a tragic dimension. Murder, betrayal, abandonment... If the agent of the Great Game is never two-faced, he sometimes frees himself from his tutelary power or is abandoned by it in distant and hostile terrain.

Between espionage and geostrategy, this ambitious book, based on unpublished research, depicts the players and explores the theaters of action in a confrontation whose reconfigurations continue to this day. Recent events, from the American withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 to Russia's military intervention in Ukraine, are indeed ushering in a new game of Grand Jeu.

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