05-30-2006, 04:45 AM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Brobst, Peter John:
<b>The Future of the Great Game: Sir Olaf Caroe, India's Independence, and the Defense of Asia.(</b>Book Review)
History: Review of New Books; 9/22/2005; Kerr, Ian J.
Brobst, Peter John The Future of the Great Game: Sir Olaf Caroe, India's Independence, and the Defense of Asia Akron: University of Akron Press 210 pp., $39.95, ISBN 1-931968-10-1 Publication Date: January 2005
As a popular concept, the "Great Game" dates from the nineteenth century when British strategists, soldiers, and spies sought to safeguard British rule in India from the pressures of rival empires, notably Russia, exerted along India's frontiers and on frontier states. However, as Peter John Brobst, an assistant professor of history at Ohio University, cogently shows through an examination of the career and writings of Sir Olaf Caroe (1892-1981), the geopolitical imperatives that animated the Great Game continued to be relevant through the twentieth century and into the early twenty-first century.<b> India, in Caroe's view, is at the strategic center of a stable interstate system in Asia. India's maritime and terrestrial border regions are crucial to the security of the Indian subcontinent. An abiding theme in Caroe's thinking was that those border regions extend from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia and that China would have to be counted among the future major players in the Great Game--as indeed did happen.</b>
Caroe thought about, wrote about, and played the Great Game. He was a senior official in the colonial Government of India including deputy foreign secretary 1934-39, secretary 1939-1946, and the last British governor of the North-West Frontier Province, 1946-47--the turbulent area now located between Pakistan and Afghanistan. After 1947 and his retirement to England, Caroe continued to be influential through his writings, lectures, and many high-level contacts.
Brobst provides a succinct exposition of Caroe's often prescient views--and the views of those with whom he was associated closely including a secret, high-level study group Caroe formed in Delhi in 1942--and an assessment of how those views proved influential (or not) in the formulation of policy. Brobst also tries to end some controversies surrounding Caroe. Did Caroe advocate the partition of the British Indian Empire--that is the creation of Pakistan--in the crucial years before 1947? No, Brobst argues, Caroe did not, although, like many others, he came to accept it as necessary. Did Caroe have an important influence on the decision of the U.S. in the 1950s to arm Pakistan (and hence sour relationships with India) as the anchor of a Middle Eastern alliance? Again, Brobst's persuasive argument is that Caroe did not.
This is a well-researched and readable little book. Although the The Future of the Great Game could use more chapter development, it should interest many of the educated specialists, nonspecialists, and political scientists interested in the historical and current geopolitical dimensions of a turbulent part of the world.
IAN J. KERR
University of Manitoba
COPYRIGHT 2005 Heldref Publications
This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<b>The Future of the Great Game: Sir Olaf Caroe, India's Independence, and the Defense of Asia.(</b>Book Review)
History: Review of New Books; 9/22/2005; Kerr, Ian J.
Brobst, Peter John The Future of the Great Game: Sir Olaf Caroe, India's Independence, and the Defense of Asia Akron: University of Akron Press 210 pp., $39.95, ISBN 1-931968-10-1 Publication Date: January 2005
As a popular concept, the "Great Game" dates from the nineteenth century when British strategists, soldiers, and spies sought to safeguard British rule in India from the pressures of rival empires, notably Russia, exerted along India's frontiers and on frontier states. However, as Peter John Brobst, an assistant professor of history at Ohio University, cogently shows through an examination of the career and writings of Sir Olaf Caroe (1892-1981), the geopolitical imperatives that animated the Great Game continued to be relevant through the twentieth century and into the early twenty-first century.<b> India, in Caroe's view, is at the strategic center of a stable interstate system in Asia. India's maritime and terrestrial border regions are crucial to the security of the Indian subcontinent. An abiding theme in Caroe's thinking was that those border regions extend from the Persian Gulf to Southeast Asia and that China would have to be counted among the future major players in the Great Game--as indeed did happen.</b>
Caroe thought about, wrote about, and played the Great Game. He was a senior official in the colonial Government of India including deputy foreign secretary 1934-39, secretary 1939-1946, and the last British governor of the North-West Frontier Province, 1946-47--the turbulent area now located between Pakistan and Afghanistan. After 1947 and his retirement to England, Caroe continued to be influential through his writings, lectures, and many high-level contacts.
Brobst provides a succinct exposition of Caroe's often prescient views--and the views of those with whom he was associated closely including a secret, high-level study group Caroe formed in Delhi in 1942--and an assessment of how those views proved influential (or not) in the formulation of policy. Brobst also tries to end some controversies surrounding Caroe. Did Caroe advocate the partition of the British Indian Empire--that is the creation of Pakistan--in the crucial years before 1947? No, Brobst argues, Caroe did not, although, like many others, he came to accept it as necessary. Did Caroe have an important influence on the decision of the U.S. in the 1950s to arm Pakistan (and hence sour relationships with India) as the anchor of a Middle Eastern alliance? Again, Brobst's persuasive argument is that Caroe did not.
This is a well-researched and readable little book. Although the The Future of the Great Game could use more chapter development, it should interest many of the educated specialists, nonspecialists, and political scientists interested in the historical and current geopolitical dimensions of a turbulent part of the world.
IAN J. KERR
University of Manitoba
COPYRIGHT 2005 Heldref Publications
This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->