The Other Great Game

The Other Great Game charts the question of Korea’s place in Asia from the 1850s up to 1910, a 60-year period that saw several wars and a series of more minor conflicts and uprisings…The book is detailed, handling well a rotating sequence of negotiations and negotiators, alongside troop movements and strategic blunders. -- Ian Rapley * Asian Review of Books * Ambitious and wide-ranging…A comprehensive and illuminating history of northeast Asia at a time of tremendous change. -- Martin Laflamme * Japan Times * It is a story…of suspense, high stakes, and sheer intrigue, and one that has as grave implications for the geopolitics of this decade as its namesake had for the geopolitics of the 1980s. -- Alex Zutt * Law & Liberty * A monumental achievement. Recounting the story of China’s decline in East Asia, Jager provides a definitive reference for the diplomatic machinations of the great-power conflict in the late nineteenth century. This is narrative historical writing at its best. -- Michael Robinson, author of <i>Korea’s Twentieth-Century Odyssey</i> For too long, the role of Korea has been in the shadows of East Asian history. With brilliant analysis and meticulous research, Jager shows that Korea’s fate was actually crucial to shaping the Asia of the nineteenth century and the turbulent regional politics that followed all the way up to World War II. Essential for readers of East Asian history and geopolitics alike. -- Rana Mitter, author of <i>China’s Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism</i> Beautifully written and deeply researched, The Other Great Game is a work of great importance and powerful insight. This gripping history offers a fresh interpretation of the age of empire at the turn of the twentieth century and a clear-eyed view of its long shadow. -- Andrew Gordon, author of <i>A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present</i>