The Small Players of the Great Game: The Settlement of Iran's Eastern Borderlands and the Creation of Afghanistan

This book deals with the 19th Century Anglo-Russian Great Game played out on the territorial chessboard of Eastern and North-eastern pasts of the waning Persian Empire. The Great Game itself has been written about extensively, but never from a Persian angle and from the point of view of the local players in that game. Looking at the territorial consequences of the Great Game for the local players is a unique approach, which deserves a special place in the studies of history, geography, politics and geopolitics of the age of modernity. Particular attention is paid in this work to the impact of the age-old rivalries between local dynasties such as the Khozeimehs of Khorasan (of Iran) and Abdalis of Afghanistan on shaping the global structure of the Great Game itself and on the political geography of West Asia. The work presents a thorough study of the 19th century Anglo-Russian games of geopolitics that have shaped today's political geography of West Asia and the evolution of the international boundariesbetween Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asian Republics. For the first time, this study reveals how, through the agency of Britain and Russian, the of Afghanistan and the Russian provinces of Central Asia were created out of the north-eastern provinces of the waning Persian empire.

Pirouz Mojtahed-Zadeh is Professor of Geopolitics at the University of Tarbiat-Modarres in Tehran.