The Gilgit Game: The Explorers of the Western Himalayas, 1865-95

Author: John Keay

Published by John Murray, London, 1979

John Keay’s account of the “Gilgit Game” explores a little-known chapter of the Great Game in the Western Himalayas. Blending research with vivid storytelling, he highlights intelligence agents whose secret explorations shaped the region. Their geographical discoveries, long unpublished, reveal a gripping story of espionage, rivalry, and strategic intrigue in colonial India’s mountainous frontier, Gilgit.



Posted on 14 April 2026