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charles__'s review against another edition
3.0
Chronicle of the 35-year period beginning in 1889 to shortly after WWI in which freebooter, archeologists plundered the remnant, cultural treasures of several dead and forgotten civilizations for their respective countries. The artifacts were located in ruins found along the track of the ancient Silk Road in remote, desert regions of the Mongolian Plateau.
Topographic map of the Mongolian Plateau during the Chinese Qing dynasty (1903)
My dead tree copy was a slender 240-pages. The original UK copy write was 1980. The book included: maps, photographs, a bibliography, and an index.
Peter Hopkirk was a British journalist, author and historian. He is the author of six books on the British Empire, The Great Game and Central Asia. He passed in 2014. I’ve read almost all of his books. The most recent being On Secret Service East of Constantinople: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire (my review).
Note while labeled a General History, I recommend having some background in the Belle Époque and Interwar periods in Europe and Asia to better appreciate the story.
Hopkirk was an accomplished writer like most Oxford educated Britons. The book was well organized. His prose was clean and easily understandable British English. There was some small repetition. His early career as a journalist taught him how to convey the maximum amount of information with the fewest words to be, easily readable to the newspaper audience. As a result, his histories can be more akin to journalistic stories than historical non-fiction. There are lots of anecdotes. In addition, his original John Murray publisher produced a very well edited and proofread book. I only found only one error.
This was very much a British history. The majority of the narrative for six featured archeologists being from British sources with western European coming next. The Bibliography was compact, although now somewhat dated. Anecdotes and excerpts from correspondence, diaries, and biographies were British. However, some German, French, Swedish and Japanese historical sources have also been incorporated into the book. The author neglected Russian sources, despite the implied espionage related to the Great Game that occurred under the guise of “geographical survey” and “archeological discovery” by that nation. Also notably missing were Chinese, sources.
It should be noted that this book was published in 1980 during the Cold War, which was to last for another 10-years. This may be responsible for the lack of both Chinese and Russian sources?
The book was mixed in its use of pictures and maps. The included pictures were good. They were mostly of the major personalities. I would have liked to have seen some current photographs of existing locations. The use of maps was poor. There were a total of two (2) large scale maps. There were a lot of place names in the narrative. Period place names were used in the maps. The borders and place names have changed (or been modernized) in the past 100 years. Even the topography has changed. I found it difficult to use a modern atlas to follow the story. As Hopkirk points out, the Chinese have been busy “making the desert bloom” and developing it. More and better maps would have been helpful.
Hopkirk tells the “dig” adventures of six archeologists from different pre-WW1 Great Powers. These early archeologists traveled to the deserts of the Mongolian Plateau to recover artifacts of past cultures that developed along the ancient Silk Road.
The Plateau was remote from European civilization. The landscape was near-desolate, and trackless except for some oasis towns and the Silk Road. The human condition there was medieval, albeit nominally under absent Chinese control. The climate was horrific in the waterless deserts, with extreme temperatures in all seasons.
However, whole cities, some of them a 1000 years old, lay out in the desert. Their remoteness and being buried under the sand, preserved them nearly intact till the modern era, in the condition in which they were abandoned due to climate change or war.
The archeologists had vaguely Indiana Jones-like experiences. Several of them as described by Hopkirk became famous. Although, many of them and scores of their native help died or were maimed from: thirst, exposure, brigandry, disease and accident.
The adventurer archeologists that made-up the majority of the narrative were:
1. Sven Hedin (Sweden)
2. Sir Aurel Stein (England)
3. Albert von LeCoq (Germany)
4. Paul Pelliot (France)
5. Langdon Warner (United States)
6. Count Ōtani Kōzui (Japan)
All of them were well fleshed-out. However, Count Ōtani never ventured into the desert. He was the private sponsor, of Japanese archeological expeditions. It was also possible, he was working with the Japanese government and involved in espionage.
Missing from the narrative is Nikolai Petrovsky the Russian consul-general in Kashgar from 1882 until 1902. He financed and supported Imperial Russian “archeologists” in the region. The Russian expeditions also received short shrift.
Taklamakan Desert (1917)
It took months to reach the richest source of artifacts in the the high-altitude, Taklamakan desert. Europeans entered the region through British India by sea and then rail, or Russia via the Trans-Siberian Railway. Entering through Russia included lengthy negotiations and bribery with the Chinese. Once there, expeditions typically lasted one to several years traveling thousands of kilometers by: foot, horse, mule, or camel. Expeditions to the Taklamakan typically were timed to avoid the extreme summer temperatures when no work could be performed.
The archeologists with their primitive techniques, ransacked the abandoned cities of every object of historical significance. Significant movable (by camel or mule) artifacts, such as art and manuscripts, were hauled away to their faraway home countries for: analysis, translation and display. Many artifacts were inadvertently destroyed in the process. Preservation of the excavation sites was rarely performed. Many sites were left exposed to the elements and looters, and as a result were destroyed. By contemporary standards, the "archeology" performed was little different from looting, except it was more methodical and was performed over days or weeks.
As a result of their work, a vast amount of: Greco-Roman, Middle-eastern, Indian, and Chinese cultural artifacts became available in Europe, albeit in several different countries. The known historical record was greatly extended. Intellectual, including religious beliefs, and artistic achievements of known and some unknown cultures were discovered and published.
European, and late comer American access to archeological sites was shutdown in the early 1920’s during the Warlord Era. That continued after WWII.
There is a great deal of modern Chinese animosity over the excavated artifacts in Western museums that have survived into contemporary times. Also, in the complete or partial destruction of valuable parts of the Chinese cultural heritage that occurred in obtaining them. It’s akin to the controversy over the Elgin Marbles.
This book was a blend of archeological and diplomatic history, including the clandestine activities of the powers involved. It was also, almost, but not quite the adventure stories of six larger-than-life characters. In places it was very detailed.
I was already rather fond of Hopkirk, before I started reading this. His narrative histories add a lot of context to events during a period of time in which I have a keen interest. His early training as a journalist, livens the historical narrative, albeit sometimes at the expense of details. This was his first book published. This is also one of his minor works, and not the best of those. Still, its better than most on the subject.
For the best example of his work, I recommend starting with [b:The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia|138299|The Great Game The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia|Peter Hopkirk|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1657546436l/138299._SX50_.jpg|133307].
”Archaeology is not a science, it’s a vendetta.” -- — Sir Mortimer Wheeler (Scottish archeologist)
Topographic map of the Mongolian Plateau during the Chinese Qing dynasty (1903)
My dead tree copy was a slender 240-pages. The original UK copy write was 1980. The book included: maps, photographs, a bibliography, and an index.
Peter Hopkirk was a British journalist, author and historian. He is the author of six books on the British Empire, The Great Game and Central Asia. He passed in 2014. I’ve read almost all of his books. The most recent being On Secret Service East of Constantinople: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire (my review).
Note while labeled a General History, I recommend having some background in the Belle Époque and Interwar periods in Europe and Asia to better appreciate the story.
Hopkirk was an accomplished writer like most Oxford educated Britons. The book was well organized. His prose was clean and easily understandable British English. There was some small repetition. His early career as a journalist taught him how to convey the maximum amount of information with the fewest words to be, easily readable to the newspaper audience. As a result, his histories can be more akin to journalistic stories than historical non-fiction. There are lots of anecdotes. In addition, his original John Murray publisher produced a very well edited and proofread book. I only found only one error.
This was very much a British history. The majority of the narrative for six featured archeologists being from British sources with western European coming next. The Bibliography was compact, although now somewhat dated. Anecdotes and excerpts from correspondence, diaries, and biographies were British. However, some German, French, Swedish and Japanese historical sources have also been incorporated into the book. The author neglected Russian sources, despite the implied espionage related to the Great Game that occurred under the guise of “geographical survey” and “archeological discovery” by that nation. Also notably missing were Chinese, sources.
It should be noted that this book was published in 1980 during the Cold War, which was to last for another 10-years. This may be responsible for the lack of both Chinese and Russian sources?
The book was mixed in its use of pictures and maps. The included pictures were good. They were mostly of the major personalities. I would have liked to have seen some current photographs of existing locations. The use of maps was poor. There were a total of two (2) large scale maps. There were a lot of place names in the narrative. Period place names were used in the maps. The borders and place names have changed (or been modernized) in the past 100 years. Even the topography has changed. I found it difficult to use a modern atlas to follow the story. As Hopkirk points out, the Chinese have been busy “making the desert bloom” and developing it. More and better maps would have been helpful.
Hopkirk tells the “dig” adventures of six archeologists from different pre-WW1 Great Powers. These early archeologists traveled to the deserts of the Mongolian Plateau to recover artifacts of past cultures that developed along the ancient Silk Road.
The Plateau was remote from European civilization. The landscape was near-desolate, and trackless except for some oasis towns and the Silk Road. The human condition there was medieval, albeit nominally under absent Chinese control. The climate was horrific in the waterless deserts, with extreme temperatures in all seasons.
However, whole cities, some of them a 1000 years old, lay out in the desert. Their remoteness and being buried under the sand, preserved them nearly intact till the modern era, in the condition in which they were abandoned due to climate change or war.
The archeologists had vaguely Indiana Jones-like experiences. Several of them as described by Hopkirk became famous. Although, many of them and scores of their native help died or were maimed from: thirst, exposure, brigandry, disease and accident.
The adventurer archeologists that made-up the majority of the narrative were:
1. Sven Hedin (Sweden)
2. Sir Aurel Stein (England)
3. Albert von LeCoq (Germany)
4. Paul Pelliot (France)
5. Langdon Warner (United States)
6. Count Ōtani Kōzui (Japan)
All of them were well fleshed-out. However, Count Ōtani never ventured into the desert. He was the private sponsor, of Japanese archeological expeditions. It was also possible, he was working with the Japanese government and involved in espionage.
Missing from the narrative is Nikolai Petrovsky the Russian consul-general in Kashgar from 1882 until 1902. He financed and supported Imperial Russian “archeologists” in the region. The Russian expeditions also received short shrift.
Taklamakan Desert (1917)
It took months to reach the richest source of artifacts in the the high-altitude, Taklamakan desert. Europeans entered the region through British India by sea and then rail, or Russia via the Trans-Siberian Railway. Entering through Russia included lengthy negotiations and bribery with the Chinese. Once there, expeditions typically lasted one to several years traveling thousands of kilometers by: foot, horse, mule, or camel. Expeditions to the Taklamakan typically were timed to avoid the extreme summer temperatures when no work could be performed.
The archeologists with their primitive techniques, ransacked the abandoned cities of every object of historical significance. Significant movable (by camel or mule) artifacts, such as art and manuscripts, were hauled away to their faraway home countries for: analysis, translation and display. Many artifacts were inadvertently destroyed in the process. Preservation of the excavation sites was rarely performed. Many sites were left exposed to the elements and looters, and as a result were destroyed. By contemporary standards, the "archeology" performed was little different from looting, except it was more methodical and was performed over days or weeks.
As a result of their work, a vast amount of: Greco-Roman, Middle-eastern, Indian, and Chinese cultural artifacts became available in Europe, albeit in several different countries. The known historical record was greatly extended. Intellectual, including religious beliefs, and artistic achievements of known and some unknown cultures were discovered and published.
European, and late comer American access to archeological sites was shutdown in the early 1920’s during the Warlord Era. That continued after WWII.
There is a great deal of modern Chinese animosity over the excavated artifacts in Western museums that have survived into contemporary times. Also, in the complete or partial destruction of valuable parts of the Chinese cultural heritage that occurred in obtaining them. It’s akin to the controversy over the Elgin Marbles.
This book was a blend of archeological and diplomatic history, including the clandestine activities of the powers involved. It was also, almost, but not quite the adventure stories of six larger-than-life characters. In places it was very detailed.
I was already rather fond of Hopkirk, before I started reading this. His narrative histories add a lot of context to events during a period of time in which I have a keen interest. His early training as a journalist, livens the historical narrative, albeit sometimes at the expense of details. This was his first book published. This is also one of his minor works, and not the best of those. Still, its better than most on the subject.
For the best example of his work, I recommend starting with [b:The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia|138299|The Great Game The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia|Peter Hopkirk|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1657546436l/138299._SX50_.jpg|133307].
abeanbg's review against another edition
4.0
Hopkirk is writing in an older idiom and with an imperial perspective, but this is still an entertaining adventure yarn. The struggles and events feel like a more realistic Indiana Jones and the archeological discoveries in the Taklamakan really were awe-inspiring.
tmdguru500's review against another edition
5.0
Really enjoyed reading this book. Never realized there was so much intrigue and events surrounding the Central Asian region. Too bad this is all the past. Would be good to see how things are today.
alcademics's review against another edition
Interesting, but not exactly entertaining. I had no idea there were dozens of lost cities in the Taklamakan desert unburied/pillaged in the late 1800s.
rysack's review against another edition
3.0
A small book, quite cyclical in its structure, but nonetheless interesting. All of the incredible history, art and manuscripts of China were, and still are, stolen from them. But, I guess, it was a different era, with different norms and rules. Who knows which side is best in the grand scheme of things (other than - give it back).
Peter Hopkirk - as amazing as ever, vividly painting the dusty, dangerous world of the Central Asian Silk Road.
6/10
Peter Hopkirk - as amazing as ever, vividly painting the dusty, dangerous world of the Central Asian Silk Road.
6/10
rhoelle's review against another edition
5.0
Quite a wonderful look at an obscure part of the world.
Some annotations and suggestions regarding this book at https://rick-heli.info/silkroad/4ndevils.html
Some annotations and suggestions regarding this book at https://rick-heli.info/silkroad/4ndevils.html
saintmaud's review against another edition
adventurous
medium-paced
3.5
super engaging and fun ! would recommend looking at herbert hartel's collection published by the met as a visual accompaniment to this book <3
tessisreading2's review against another edition
4.0
This is a very readable book, essentially a chronicle of the work of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century foreign (mostly western) archaeologists looting Silk Road sites in what is now Xinjiang province. Hopkirk excels at drawing pencil sketches of the archaeologists, their sidekicks, the world around them, the techniques they used, etc., and he does a good job of conveying the pulse-pounding adventure of riding into the Taklamakan desert with a couple of trusted servants (none of whom speak the native language), some camels loaded with an undefined amount of water, and a lot of acquisitive hope. It's a fun read.
That said, it's very much a period of its time; while Hopkirk pays vague lip service to the idea that maybe it's not the greatest thing for western archaeologists to come and strip a country of its native heritage and cart it off to foreign museums, his bigger issue seems to be that the British Museum just shoved all of its Central Asian artifacts into a basement instead of giving them the Elgin Marbles treatment. He acknowledges, for example, that everything the Germans got was destroyed during WWII, but basically argues that maybe local Muslims would also have destroyed the artifacts so really it could have been worse. I get that he was writing in 1980 but the conversation around this kind of thing has advanced significantly beyond 1980, so it's just something to be aware of. There are also some odd notes of classism (after a lengthy discussion of the feuding between a bunch of German archaeologists because the senior archaeologist thought the junior archaeologists were making a mess of their excavations, in a later chapter when an English archaeologist complains about the state of a German site he suggests on no evidence that the site might have been excavated by the German archaeologists' handyman operating solo). The overall feel is very "yay imperialism, colonial adventurers riding forth" - the book ends with Hopkirk bemoaning the arrival of the first busload of British tourists to the area, thereby destroying the glamor of the Silk Road, which I guess is kind of a look?
That said, it's very much a period of its time; while Hopkirk pays vague lip service to the idea that maybe it's not the greatest thing for western archaeologists to come and strip a country of its native heritage and cart it off to foreign museums, his bigger issue seems to be that the British Museum just shoved all of its Central Asian artifacts into a basement instead of giving them the Elgin Marbles treatment. He acknowledges, for example, that everything the Germans got was destroyed during WWII, but basically argues that maybe local Muslims would also have destroyed the artifacts so really it could have been worse. I get that he was writing in 1980 but the conversation around this kind of thing has advanced significantly beyond 1980, so it's just something to be aware of. There are also some odd notes of classism (after a lengthy discussion of the feuding between a bunch of German archaeologists because the senior archaeologist thought the junior archaeologists were making a mess of their excavations, in a later chapter when an English archaeologist complains about the state of a German site he suggests on no evidence that the site might have been excavated by the German archaeologists' handyman operating solo). The overall feel is very "yay imperialism, colonial adventurers riding forth" - the book ends with Hopkirk bemoaning the arrival of the first busload of British tourists to the area, thereby destroying the glamor of the Silk Road, which I guess is kind of a look?