The Sword and the Cross: Two Men and an Empire of Sand

By Fergus Fleming. Grove Press, 2003. ISBN 0-8021-1752-X.

In the 19th century, European competition for African colonies would have been comic opera if it hadn’t been so arrogant and brutal.

The Sword and the Cross is the dramatic story of France’s crusade to colonize all of North Africa from 1830 to 1919. Author Fergus Fleming is a British adventure writer and historian. He has written three other books, including the critically acclaimed Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole (Grove Press, 2002).

Fleming begins this story with the French occupation of Algeria in 1830, a colonial effort begun by accident and continued by stubborn absentmindedness. He writes about the dreamers who saw only riches and glory, ignoring the obstacles and hazards of establishing French settlements in an inhospitable land peopled by Arab tribesmen who did not want them there. Bloodshed, military defeats, and economic failures were the rewards for France’s costly North African adventure.

Much of the book focuses on two Frenchmen, one a fanatical monk, the other a ruthless soldier. Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) and Henri Laperrine (1860-1919) are considered heroes in French colonial history. They served in North Africa for nearly 40 years before getting themselves killed, and they epitomized the French imperial attitude—colonization as a patriotic and Christian duty.

Fleming describes how both men came to North Africa in 1880 as soldiers. Then, Foucauld left the army and became a Trappist monk. He established a monastic order so strict he was its only member. He spent the rest of his life trying to convert Muslims to Christianity (he converted no one) and conspiring with his friend Laperrine to conquer Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and the Sahara desert.

Laperrine was an ambitious soldier who loved duty in North Africa because he could do almost whatever he wanted. The French army operated as “a military dictatorship that had been allowed to run wild,” considering the Sahara “an enlarged parade ground for the military.” Paris rarely intervened in North African affairs, and that suited Laperrine just fine.

Fleming’s well-crafted portrayal of the incredible lives of the monk and the militant is a vivid tale of misguided imperialism.

The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia By Lutz

Kleveman. Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003. ISBN 0-87113-906-5.

The “great game” is not over. In the 19th century, the great game was a tense ballet of bluff and brinkmanship between Great Britain and Russia over control of the riches of India and Central Asia. Today’s great game has different players, is more complex and dangerous, and has much higher stakes.

The New Great Game is author Lutz Kleveman’s first book, a grim and depressing analysis of the geopolitical strategies to control and exploit the huge reserves of oil and natural gas in the Caucasus, the Caspian Sea area, and all of Central Asia. Kleveman is a journalist and war correspondent who traveled extensively in Central Asia to see for himself the terrain, the players, the resources, and the dangers in what he calls “pipeline politics.”

This book is a well-written and cleverly presented political, economic, industrial, and military travelogue analyzing the tremendous difficulties of oil production and transportation in a region filled with bitter ethnic, religious, and nationalistic rivalries. Central Asia is known for violence, corruption, civil war, anarchy, economic chaos, and crime—hardly an encouraging business climate, but oil and gas are too valuable to leave in the ground.

According to Kleveman, the Caucasus region, the Caspian Sea, and all of Central Asia have great reserves of oil and natural gas, enough untapped fuel to offset the influence of opec and reduce the West’s reliance on Middle East oil. The problem is that Central Asia is politically unstable and geographically remote.

Kleveman describes the energy, wealth, and political complications of the region, highlighting all of the countries involved, from Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan to Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. He also tells of the intense competition among the players in the new great game—the United States, Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, and Pakistan.

Using anecdotes and dramatic narrative, Kleveman offers sharp insight into the unsubtle geostrategic maneuverings of the United States, Russia, China, and Iran over competing oil and gas pipeline projects, with each nation trying to thwart the others’ projects and promote its own. In the middle, of course, are the impoverished Central Asian countries, all former Soviet republics, whose leaders fully understand they are merely pawns in the new great game.

Kleveman provides startling examples of rampant corruption, bribery, and extortion. He describes Russia’s heavy-handed efforts to regain hegemony over its former republics, China’s growing influence and demands for oil, and the “oiligarchs” who rule Central Asian countries as polluted, personal fiefdoms. He also describes how deeply involved the United States is in gaining control of Central Asian oil. The Iranians, he reports, firmly believe the U.S. war on terror is nothing but a contrived plot to militarily take over all of Central Asia.

Kleveman is critical of U.S. foreign policy and the United Nations’ impotence with peacekeeping and negotiations, and his predictions for the future are stark and frightening. For more on this subject, see also Resource Wars by Michael Klare (Metropolitan Books, 2001).
— Reviews by William D. Bushnell

Member Books

FICTION

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Tom Doherty Associates LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. (212) 388-0100. www.tor.com. ISBN 0-812-56169-4. 352 pp. $6.99 plus postage.

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AuthorHouse, 1663 Liberty Drive, Suite 200, Bloomingotn, IN 47403. (888) 519-5121. www.authorhouse.com. ISBN 1-4184-2212-6. 275 pp. $16.95 plus postage.

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PublishAmerica, P.O. Box 151, Frederick, MD 21705. (301) 695-1707. www.publishamerica.com. ISBN 1-4137-1922-8. 189 pp. $19.95 plus postage.

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NON-FICTION