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BOOKS
Authorspeak
KARL MEYER & SHAREEN BRYSAC
Game Theorists
If
one wonders how someone with a PhD from Princeton University can write
a book that reads like an international thriller, the answer lies in the
fact that the aforementioned individual, Karl E. Meyer, was also a writer
for The Washington Post and the New York Times. Tournament
of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia (Cornelia
and Michael Bessie Book Publication) is a 600-page tome Meyer researched
and wrote with his wife Shareen Blair Brysac, a contributing writer to
Archaeology magazine, over a period of nine years.
The Great
Game, the Anglo-Russian rivalry for control in Central Asia, began in
1812 when the East India Company hired a horse doctor-the first qualified
veterinarian in Britain-to improve the seedy mounts of its cavalry. When
William Moorcroft headed north in search of better animals, he spotted
Russian agents. The news reached the British officials at once. Thus began
two centuries of spying, treachery, bribery, bullying and bloodshed. "We
knew we had a wonderful subject but we also knew that we did not want
to rely only on British or European documents," says Meyer. In 1990,
the New York Times' then bureau chief, Barbara Crosette, suggested
that Meyer and Brysac visit the Khyber Pass. "When we looked down
on Afghanistan, we knew that we needed to explore the region," says
Meyer. And how did their marriage survive the arduous journey? "The
only serious argument we had was over the spelling of tsar," says
Brysac, laughing.
The book's
characters include brave men, shameless cads, avaricious rulers, artist
and mystic Nicholas Roerich, who was determined to find the fabled Shambala,
and theosophists, including the intriguing Madame Blavatsky. Brysac says
that in writing the book the couple tried to follow the example of Alan
Moorhead. "He manages to work an extraordinary amount of detail into
a seamless narrative." According to Meyer, their work is a history
lesson that should serve as a warning for the future. He says: "We
have a tendency to back the wrong horse, over and over again."
-Arthur
J. Pais
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Relics
of old empires exist everywhere. Why can't the Mani Shankar Aiyars of
India let them be? asks INDIA TODAY Senior Editor Ravi Shankar in
