Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia

Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia

Burnaby, Captain Royal Horse Guards Fre

Paperback

Travel WritingCentral Asian HistoryExploration

ISBN10: 1845748344
ISBN13: 9781845748340
Publisher: Naval & Military Press
Published: Oct 15 2015
Pages: 514
Weight: 1.30
Height: 1.03 Width: 5.50 Depth: 8.50
Language: English
The author of this remarkable true tale of travel and adventure in Russian-ruled central Asia was larger than life in every sense. Fred Burnaby was a giant of prodigious strength (he once transported two donkeys by carrying one under either arm) who found the Victorian army too staid and stuffy for his restless spirit. He therefore interspersed his conventional military career as a cavalry officer with stints as a war correspondent, pioneer balloonist (he flew across the Channel), traveller - and spy. This was the book which brought Burnaby fame and made him a celebrity. It tells of his journey (authorised by the British Army) deep in Russian-controlled Turkmenistan to spy out the land and determine whether the Russians were planning to invade British-ruled India (a perennial fear of Britain during the grand strategic rivalry with the Russian Bear dubbed by KIpling 'the Great Game'). Both as a portrait of 'far-away peoples of whom we know nothing'; as a mid-Victorian travelogue in the grand style; and as an account of derring-do by a great adventurer, this book should be as popular now as when it was first published. Fittingly, after an action-packed life Burnaby eventually died fighting in the Sudan at the Battle of Abu Klea.

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