"Kleveman has produced a convincing and well-researched book,
part travelogue, part geopolitical primer, providing a fascinating
study not only of an area that is likely soon to become as problematic
as the Middle East, but of America's oil-dominated foreign policy."
Sunday Times, October 3, 2004 - READ
MORE
"[Kleveman's] report is at its most unsettling when local
warlords and magnates, fuelled with vodka, open up to him. At
some risk to his life, he has doggedly reported on the new Klondyke."
The Times, September 11, 2004 - READ
MORE
"A cast of shady characters worthy of a le Carré
novel... Part travel-writing, part polemic, this eminently readable
book slots the hostilities in Iraq into the context of a much
longer-term struggle for resources."
The Observer, August 22, 2004 - READ
MORE
"Mr Kleveman links the instability of the region to oil
greed. [He] feeds his argument with enlightening historical background
and colourful anecdotes from his extensive travels and interviews.
(...)
The Economist, November 20, 2003 - READ
MORE
"A powerful, compelling book... in the very best tradition
of foreign reporting, Kleveman has uncovered the staggering dimensions
of the resources being channelled into the struggle for control
of the Caspian oilfields."
Misha Glenny in The Observer, November 2, 2003 -
READ MORE
"Enjoyable, gripping, important... His reportage is first-class
and his findings truly enlightening. I wished that the author
would turn out to be British..."
Literary Review, November 1, 2003 - READ
MORE
"Travelling with some danger to himself and marshalling
the political and historical facts with authority, Kleveman [produces]
a coherent study of a notoriously complex and unpredictable region,
much of which is torn by terrible violence and civil wars."
Sunday Times October 19, 2003 - READ
MORE
"This book's strength lies in the author's sharp journalistic
eye, and his apparent fearlessness..."
The Independent: October 14, 2003 - READ
MORE
"Lutz Kleveman's timely, panoramic book examines
the consequences of the presence of enormous quantities of fossil
fuels in one of the world's most inaccessible and unstable regions.
(...)
(...) Although Kleveman has worked as a war correspondent
himself, his inclinations here are less macho and more inquisitive
than the norm..."
The Guardian: October 11, 2003 -
READ MORE
"The book is an easy-to-read guide to countries where the
food is atrocious and the plumbing worse. The book is clever.
Kleveman has traveled thousands of miles and spoken to scores
of important and interesting people. Unfortunately, all the entertaining
reportage is a cover for an insidious attack on the United States."
New York Post: January 25, 2004 - READ
MORE
"Lutz Kleveman (...) offers readers the tools they need
to understand the foolishness of investing enormous political
and financial resources in places like Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan
without demanding fundamental changes in the way these places
are governed. He is liberal in his biases, but he does not hide
them, and this is a fair and well-reported book."
The New York Sun: November 19, 2003 - READ
MORE
"The author's investigations took him on a journey of thousands
of miles - the result is a direct and racy account, written mostly
in the present tense and with plenty of dialogue."
History Today: November 2004 - READ
MORE
"Like many before him, by portraying international affairs
in Central Asia as a zero-sum geopolitical 'new great game', the
author sacrifices accuracy on the altar of romantic sensationalism."
International Affairs: Volume 80, Issue 2, 2004 -
READ MORE
"On the whole, the book impresses. Kleveman risked his neck
traveling across Central Asia to interview a diverse cast of characters:
diplomats and mullahs, businessmen and border guards. (...)
"...a brilliant exposition of the competition for oil."
National Review: September 29, 2003 - READ
MORE
"...[The author] can take credit for a book that is essential
for those seeking as many views as possible on this complicated
moment in history."
The Seattle Times: October 26, 2003 - READ
MORE
"Lutz Kleveman takes readers on a fascinating
trip through 10 countries (...) and tells a spellbinding tale
of "blood and oil" on an authentic frontier full of
bandits, gangs, crooked politicians, modern-day robber barons
and even whole renegade provinces..."
San Francisco Chronicle: September 21,
2003 - READ MORE
"The timing of Kleveman's travels was in some ways highly
fortuitous, as he was on the front lines of the post-Sept. 11,
2001, surge of interest in Central Asia and the Caspian -- parts
of the world that, just five years earlier, had barely registered
on the global geopolitical radar screen."
The Moscow Times: May 28, 2004 - READ
MORE
"A well-argued, well-observed journey into a little-known
area likely
to be of much importance in days to come... Anyone who believed
that the recent American invasion of Iraq was about countering
terrorism might want to reconsider."
Kirkus Reviews: July 15, 2003 - READ
MORE
"The work draws attention to a little understood and increasingly
important part of the world where oil, Islam and terrorism converge
to create havoc..."
Publishers Weekly - READ
MORE
"This book is a well-written and cleverly presented political,
economic, industrial, and military travelogue.. Using anecdotes
and dramatic narrative, Kleveman offers sharp insight into the
unsubtle geostrategic maneuverings..."
Military Officer: September 2004 - READ
MORE
"[Kleveman] tells a good story, rife with irony" (...)
"And what comes of this for Kleveman? It is (...) not a
hopeful scenario. He closes with a vivid paragraph of consumerist
America watching cruise missiles fall on civilians, in between
television commercials."
Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies: March
2005 - READ MORE
"Kleveman brings lucid witness to these incomprehensible
realities. Flowing easily from the big picture to the small, The
New Great Game dimensionalizes peoples and crises that have often
exceeded the reach of popular consciousness."
The Brooklyn Rail, Januar 2003 - READ
MORE
"Kleveman is not particularly anti-American. He has seen
enough of conflicts in the non-developed world to be a realist
on the subject of this region’s present and likely future.
The author is knowledgeable about the international petroleum
industry without being allied with it or adversarial to it."
Intervention Magazine, December 7, 2003 - READ
MORE
"A journalist, Kleveman writes with enough passion and simplicity
to shed light on his complicated subject and from enough personal
experience to bring it vividly to life."
Socialist Review, December 2003 -
READ MORE
“In Baghdad, where I have been working as a surgeon among
the casualties of an ongoing war, Iraqis say that their country
was invaded to secure control of its oil. Lutz Kleveman's odyssey
into the heart of United States energy policy in Central Asia
reveals that this conflict is just one front in a global oil war.”
Jonathan Kaplan, author of The Dressing Station
“Lutz Kleveman has written a timely and daring book to
remind us that the Great Game is alive and well in the 21st century.”
Jason Elliot, author of An Unexpected Light: Travels
in Afghanistan
“The New Great Game is an urgent, vigorous insight into
a vital issue of the new century. It is undertaken with clear
sight and bulldog energy.”
Colin Thubron, Author of The Lost Heart of Asia
“Part reportage part essay, written with journalistic wit
by a reporter who also has the historian's eye, Kleveman's new
book has the merit to show us how much is at stake—strategically,
financially and military—in corners of the world that, after
the colonial era ended, became irrelevant and were considered
just a “big black hole”. Kleveman explains in a convincing
way that the New Great Game for the “Devil's tears”
is becoming the new Cold War, with the Caspian Sea now as important
as the old Berlin Wall. A book that will provide us with ideas
and analysis for some years to come.”
Riccardo Orizio, Author of Talk of the Devil:
Encounters With Seven Dictators
