The Great Game (disambiguation)

The Great Game, military and political machinations in Central Asia between the Russian Empire and the British Empire. It may also refer to:

See also

The Great Game

"The Great Game" (Also called the Tournament of Shadows (Russian: Турниры теней, Turniry Teney) in Russia) was the strategic economic and political rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia at the expense of Afghanistan, Persia and the Central Asian Khanates/Emirates. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907, in which nations like Emirate of Bukhara fell. A less intensive phase followed the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, causing some trouble with Persia and Afghanistan until the mid 1920s.

In the post-Second World War post-colonial period, the term has informally continued in its usage to describe the geopolitical machinations of the Great Powers and regional powers as they vie for geopolitical power and influence in the area, especially in Afghanistan and Iran/Persia.

The term "The Great Game" is usually attributed to Arthur Conolly (1807–1842), an intelligence officer of the British East India Company's 6th Bengal Light Cavalry. It was introduced into mainstream consciousness by British novelist Rudyard Kipling in his novel Kim (1901).

Game

A game is structured form of play, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes used as an educational tool. Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more often an expression of aesthetic or ideological elements. However, the distinction is not clear-cut, and many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator sports or games) or art (such as jigsaw puzzles or games involving an artistic layout such as Mahjong, solitaire, or some video games).

Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational, or psychological role.

Attested as early as 2600 BC, games are a universal part of human experience and present in all cultures. The Royal Game of Ur, Senet, and Mancala are some of the oldest known games.

Game of Thrones

Game of Thrones is an American fantasy drama television series created by showrunners David Benioff and D. B. Weiss. It is an adaptation of A Song of Ice and Fire, George R. R. Martin's series of fantasy novels, the first of which is titled A Game of Thrones. It is filmed in a Belfast studio and on location elsewhere in Croatia, Iceland, Malta, Morocco, Northern Ireland, Spain, Scotland, and the United States, and premiered on HBO in the United States on April 17, 2011. The series has been renewed for a sixth season, which will premiere on April 24, 2016.

The series is set on the fictional continents of Westeros and Essos, and interweaves several plot lines with a large ensemble cast. The first narrative arc follows a civil war among several noble houses for the Iron Throne of the Seven Kingdoms; the second covers the attempts to reclaim the throne by the exiled last scion of the realm's deposed ruling dynasty; the third chronicles the rising threat of the impending winter and the legendary creatures and fierce peoples of the North.

Rory Stewart

Roderick James Nugent Stewart, OBE, FRSL (born 3 January 1973) is a British academic, author, diplomat, documentary maker and Conservative politician presently serving as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA). He is a former Chair of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee. Since May 2010, he has been the Member of Parliament for Penrith and The Border, in the county of Cumbria, North West England.

Stewart was a senior coalition official in Iraq in 2003–04. He is known for his book about this experience, The Prince of the Marshes (also published under the title Occupational Hazards), and for his 2002 walk across Afghanistan (one part of a larger walk across Asia), which served as the basis for another book, The Places in Between, as well as his later cultural development work in Afghanistan as the Founder and Executive Chairman of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, a British charity.

Early life

Stewart, whose family seat is Broich House near Crieff in Perthshire, Scotland, was born in Hong Kong, brought up in Malaysia and Scotland and educated at the Dragon School and Eton College. During his gap year in 1991 he was commissioned in the Black Watch for nine months as second lieutenant (on probation). He attended Balliol College, Oxford, where he read modern history and politics, philosophy and economics (PPE).