The Other Great Game

The Opening of Korea and the Birth of Modern East Asia

By: Sheila Miyoshi Jager

Narrated by: Kathleen Li

In the nineteenth century, Russia participated in two "great games": one, pitted the tsar's empire against Britain in Central Asia. The other, saw Russia, China, and Japan vying for domination of the Korean Peninsula. In this eye-opening account, Sheila Miyoshi Jager argues that the contest over Korea, driven both by Korean domestic disputes and by great-power rivalry, set the course for the future of East Asia and the larger global order.

When Russia's eastward expansion brought it to the Korean border, an impoverished but strategically located nation was wrested from centuries of isolation. Korea became a prize of two major imperial conflicts: the Sino-Japanese War at the close of the nineteenth century and the Russo-Japanese War at the beginning of the twentieth. Japan's victories in the battle for Korea not only earned the Meiji regime its yearned-for colony but also dislodged Imperial China from centuries of regional supremacy. And the fate of the declining tsarist empire was sealed by its surprising military defeat, even as the US and Britain sized up the new Japanese challenger.

A vivid story of two geopolitical earthquakes sharing Korea as their epicenter, The Other Great Game rewrites the script of twentieth-century rivalry in the Pacific and enriches our understanding of contemporary global affairs.

©2023 Sheila Miyoshi Jager (P)2023 Tantor

Important history well told

Important history and solid research. The story telling aspect
Makes it Very enjoyable. Kudos to
The author. The narrator at times sounded robotic.

Apologist

I will be honest, I did not finish this book. I just really could not. The way that the Joseon dynasty and the Korean people are framed is insulting. As someone who studies East Asia and Russian history, the book is very much telling the story that it wants to tell, while clinging onto the non-fictional aspect.

odd

dripping with bias. the way they say that Japan is leading the way of progress and democracy