LONDON/United Kingdom, SEPT. 24 2014 (The Conway Bulletin) — A natural adventurer, story-teller and Central Asia historian, the British author Peter Hopkirk died aged on Aug. 22 aged 83.

Hopkirk was a foreign correspondent for various British newspaper who developed a niche specialisation in later life writing about the so-called Great Gamers of Central Asia.

The first of these books was the seminal ‘Foreign devils on the Silk Road: The search for the lost cities and treasures of Chinese Central Asia’, published in 1980.

Widely acclaimed this book was followed by five more on Central Asia, including Hopkirk’s most well-known book ‘The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia’, published in 1990.

These books first brought to the public’s attention the high stakes game played out in the late 19th century between mainly British and Russian agents in Central Asia. This important part of imperial history had been largely overlooked by modern historians until Hopkirk’s books.

His stories were made more remarkable because most were written and researched while Central Asia was still part of the Soviet Union. He once described how he had to play games of his own with various minders to grab interviews or delve into an archive for information.

It’s hard to over-state Hopkirk’s contribution to our understanding of Central Asia and its importance in the world, as the publisher noted in a brief blurb to his fifth book ‘On Secret service east of Constitnople’ published in 1994.

“Pieced together from the secret intelligence reports of the day and the long-forgotten memoirs of the participants, Peter Hopkirk’s latest narrative is an enthralling sequel to his best-selling ‘The Great Game’ and three earlier works’,” it said.

“It is also highly topical in view of recent events in the region where the Great Game has never really ceased.”

ENDS

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(News report from Issue No. 201, published on Sept. 24 2014)