The Struggle for Asia 1828–1914
(1977) studies a classic case of rival imperialisms. British leaders tended to believe that Russian expansion threatened India; Russian leaders came to believe in a British threat to
their
empire. Each sought security by trying to control the policies of weaker states which lay between their imperial frontiers and on whose alignment depended the balance of power. By 1914, when both felt even more threatened by Germany than by one another, Russia seemed to have gained the upper hand in a struggle for hegemony in Asia which had been crucial for the course of world politics. This book examines the intellectual origins of the ‘Great Game’.