 |
GetTextbooks.com
Compare Prices & Save up to 90% |
|
|
|
| Login | Sign up | Settings | My Wish List |
 | | The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia by Lutz Kleveman ISBN-10: 9780802141729 ISBN-10: 0-8021-4172-2 ISBN-13: 9780802141729 ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-4172-9 Paperback 2004-08-10 Grove Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description In the tradition of The Prize, Lutz Kleveman gives us the twenty-first-century chapter on the history, passion, and politics of oil and gas resources, and the struggle to control them in a critical part of the world. Using the concept of the "Great Game" that Rudyard Kipling immortalized in his novel Kim, Kleveman argues that there is now a new Great Game in the region, a modern variant of the nineteenth-century clash of imperial ambitions of Great Britain and Tsarist Russia. Traveling thousands of miles, from Turkmenistan (where statues of the country's leader are made of gold and line the thoroughfares) to the Afghan Hindu Kush, Kleveman met with the principal Great Game actors between Kabul and Moscow: oil barons, generals, diplomats, and warlords. Based on extensive research and travel in the Caucasus, the Caspian, and Central Asia, The New Great Game is a thrilling travel narrative through one of the world's last unexplored frontiers, and a savvy and incisive analysis of the power struggle for the world's remaining energy resources. | ||
Reviews | ||
The Real Deal Even though this book was written five years ago, it is a must read for anyone interesting in matters geopolitical and oil-related. From the beginning, Lutz Kleveman cogently explains the furture importance of Middle East, Central Asia and the Caspian basin on the world's dwindling oil supply. It quickly becomes clear that the US is not in Iraq, Afganistan or Georgia to fight terrorism and establish democracy but rather to establish control over a long-term, reliable, affordable source of oil and natural gas for the upcoming years. Enter the Iranians, Russians and Chinese and you have a really good geopolitical thriller. If you like exotic locales, Lutz is your tourguide. If I was a political science educator, this book would be on my required reading list. | ||
A Unique Perspective Not being an expert on central Asia or U.S. oil policy, I can't comment on whether the author has all his facts straight. But he makes an excellent case that the U.S. may well be headed for deep kimchi in Asia and the Middle East with hubristic actions and attitudes. And I disagree that the average person will get as much from the newspaper as in this book. Kleveland provides a comprehensive overview of the what key people in the region are thinking about U.S. oil policy there, with lucid insight about oil politics in Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and other nations with a stake in Caspian sea oil. Since the author writes about his personal experiences as he visits key politicians, war lords and power brokers in many of these countries, the reader gets a bird's eye view of what may "really" be going on in the minds of leaders there. This perspective is unique, and one gets the sense that the truth is being told. It's not something you hear on the nightly news, and it's not pretty. The writing is exceptional - the book is hard to put down. | ||
Excellent writing, well researched, very relevant Lutz Kleveman's book "The New Great Game" explores the exciting world of money, oil, war, and political intrigue that is modern Central Asia. The title is a reference to the grandiose chess-like struggle between Russia and Britain for control over Central Asia in the 19th century, where possession of bountiful, empire-making India was at stake. In that time period, rogues and renegades, politicians and emmisaries, viceroys and emirs all charted out an extravagant drama that contributed immeasurably to the course of history. Kleveman argues "The Great Game" is far from over: there are new players and new stakes in the New Great Game of the 21st century. Interviewing everyone from oilmen to military commanders to revolutionary leaders to madrassa students, Klevemen unravels a huge, complex net of motivations and intents that underlie the beehive of political and military activity that buzzes over Central Asia. It effectively digs beneath the veneer that is presented to us by the media which obscures the happenings of the region: true, there is a war on terror in the area, true, Muslim fundamentalism is a factor there. However, the everyday layman usually knows very little beyond this sensationalistic coverage from news outlets, and this does little justice to activity in Central Asia which may, as with the original Great Game, seriously determine the course of history. Looking back in time, we acknowledge soberly that economic factors have been one of the most enduring, reliable, and strong influences in determining historical events. The quest for tea, spices, and opium drove colonialization. Industrialization marks one of the most jarring technological shifts to have ever occured to mankind. Today, current events often is discussed in the language of globalization. However, it is very easy to forget that economics remains the preeminent determinant and that current events often have economic motivations that loom over ideological ones. Kleveman's book is superb in that it brings us back to this vital understanding. New Great Game players like Iran, China, Russia, and the United States are poised to stake their claims on the world's last fronteir in oil reserves in Central Asia, and geopoltically, Central Asia is where the these powers' spheres of influence converge. A cultured awareness of the political, military, and economic undertakings that are being carried out in this area right now, and an understanding of the historical consequences of these events will make a person a more informed global citizen. Kleveman's "The New Great Game" is an excellent place to start in seeking this awareness. | ||
Plus ça change... In the past Great Game, canny potentates, shahs and princes played Tsarist Russia and Imperial Britain one off the other through a series of proxy wars, treaties, and backdoor politicking that went on well into the twentieth century. Now, although the sun has set on the British Raj, the stakes are higher, and Russia and her "federation" continue to wheedle and deal, this time with oil as the prize. New players, namely the US and China, have stepped into the fray, and the Game has escallated into more than just a few stray spies skulking through the Hindu Kush. Kleveman rightly sees the area of the Stans as being the new center of the world. He takes us through areas previously behind the Stalinist iron curtain--and fast becomming the Islamist curtain--to storied "countries", their people and leaders, and the iron grip that the past still imposes on the present. It's thrilling reading, and sobering, too. If politics and economics move too fast to make this book current in ten years, it will still maintain its place as one the best overviews of the central Asian geopolitical scene available to the lay reader in English. | ||
Travelogue on Central Asia, Oil, and Conflict Reading this book is an easy way to learn about Central Asia through the first-hand impressions of an intrepid journalist. Lutz Kleveman travels through dangerous countries, interviews ministers, ambassadors, and business executives, and also gathers impressions from men and women in the street. The themes of this narrative center on the rich oil and natural gas resources of the region, the prevalence of corruption, bad government, and ethnic tension, and the conflicting strategic interests of the US, Russia, China, and Iran. The narrative starts on a depressing note. Kleveman visits Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, where he finds that "upscale boutiques and picturesque minarets...cannot mask the strong stench of oil, that never dissipates, day or night." US firms hope to build a pipeline to Turkey, but political instability looms as a risk. The Azeris still seeth over the loss of Karabakh in the mid-90s war with Armenia, and Kleveman finds proud nationalists who advocate war to seize back the region. Georgia is truly discouraging. Once the most beautiful of Caucasian cites, Tblisi now exudes at best a "moribund charm." The author discovers that "corruption and nepotism have reached catastrophic levels, destroying the country and society at almost every level." Kleveman tours Abkhazia, which he finds heavily garrisoned by Russian soldiers as a potential blocking move against Western-sponsored pipeline projects. The author visits with Chechnyan refugees in Ingushetia and hears nightmarish accounts of violence, chaos, and corruption in Chechnya. On a more positive note, a side trip to Kashgar in China's Xinjiang province finds that Uighurs (indigenous Muslims) are benefiting from improved living standards in the booming economy, although ethnic tensions with Han Chinese persist. And Kazakhstan seems poised to benefit from the immense Kashagan and Tengiz oil fields, which between them may contain in excess of 50 billion barrels of crude. Kleveman wonders how much of this will trickle down to the people, the majority of whom live in poverty. In Afghanistan, he finds disenchantment with the US. A tribal soldier tells him, "We Afghans know very well that the Americans did not come here to help us - they are here because they need Afghanistan to get access to the oil and gas at the Caspian Sea." As one might expect, anti-Americanism is rampant in Pakistan's tribal territories. Kleveman interviews a retired Pakistani general, the former US ambassador, and a senior leader of the country's Islamicist party. Surprisingly Kleveman reports pro-Western sentiment in Iran, where he senses that the revolution has discredited fundamental Islam in the people's eyes. But Iranian hopes for a pipeline to the Tengiz field in Kazakhstan run aground against US sanctions, which no oil firm dares break. Kleveman ends the book with what some will take to be an anti-American diatribe. He argues that "American arrogance of power will not fail to affect relations" with the countries of the region, which now suspect that "the Bush administration [is] using its war against terror in Central Asia to seal the American Cold War victory against Russia, to contain Chinese influence, and to tighten the noose around Iran." He senses a huge change in perception of the US, which was "admired and loved" in the aftermath of the Cold War, but whose policies are now perceived as "arrogant, aggressive, and outright imperialist." He worries that "the region's impoverished populaces, disgusted with the United States' alliances with their corrupt and despotic rulers, [will] increasingly embrace militant Islam and virulent anti-Americanism." Whether the reader agrees with Kleveman's conclusions or not, one has to respect his fieldwork. For those interested in this poorly understood but strategically important region of the world, the book provides useful data and impressions. | ||