The Silk Roads: A New History of the World

Chapter 15, “The Road to Crisis,” charts the rise of Russia and their burgeoning rivalry with the British Empire in the 19th century. Russia’s incorporation of territories on the Central Asian steppes and the Caucasus fueled their economic growth and made them rivals of European powers such as Britain. During the Napoleonic Wars in the early 19th century, however, the British allied themselves with Russia against Napoleon, in the process alienating Eastern connections such as Persia. In the following decades, it was the Russians—as opposed to the British—whose position in Persia grew stronger. Wanting to protect their own holdings in Asia, the British tried to undermine Russia by intervening in local politics, sometimes with disastrous results—as in their failed conquest of Afghanistan in the 1840s.

The Russian defeat in the Crimean War was a crucial blow to Russian expansion, but the peace terms imposed on the Russians proved too harsh. Instead of crippling Russia, these terms “prompted a period of change and reform” (282) in Russia that only strengthened the country as it modernized and consolidated its position in Central Asia.