The Other Great Game charts the question of Korea's place in Asia from the 1850s up to 1910, a 60-year period that saw several wars and a series of more minor conflicts and uprisings...The book is detailed, handling well a rotating sequence of negotiations and negotiators, alongside troop movements and strategic blunders.--Ian Rapley "Asian Review of Books" (6/23/2023 12:00:00 AM)

Ambitious and wide-ranging...A comprehensive and illuminating history of northeast Asia at a time of tremendous change.--Martin Laflamme "Japan Times" (7/9/2023 12:00:00 AM)

A terrific book...vividly written, comprehensive in coverage, and extremely well researched...will remain one of the definitive works on the history of East Asian international relations for some time to come.--Jaehan Park "Texas National Security Review" (5/1/2024 12:00:00 AM)

It is a story...of suspense, high stakes, and sheer intrigue, and one that has as grave implications for the geopolitics of this decade as its namesake had for the geopolitics of the 1980s.--Alex Zutt "Law & Liberty" (9/5/2023 12:00:00 AM)

Masterful storytelling...incomparable in providing a panoramic, comprehensive, in-depth understanding of what [Korea's geostrategic location] means historically...this book fulfills something perhaps only a narrative history can do: that is to embrace contingencies of the many historical moments in the shaping of East Asian modernity and transformation, in ways that give voice to all the actors that need to be in, while examining individuals, societies, politics, and international life in a panoramic way and going deeper into human emotions and sufferings.--Ji-Young Lee "H-Diplo" (3/26/2024 12:00:00 AM)

Chronicles in detail major diplomatic and military events that occurred in East Asia from the 1880s
to 1910, when Japan annexed Korea...a readable account enlivened with colorful quotations.

Over the course of its temporal sweep and multinational span, [this book] finds room to be very, very good on the details of numerous political debates, diplomatic negotiations, and military clashes, and thus constitutes an ample repository of basic accounts of these events. Meanwhile, its fundamental reframing of the competition for Korea through the dynamics of Russian expansion, and the contest of interests that this expansion helped spark, will likely be most appreciated by a more advanced scholarly readership already versed in existing interpretations and their lacunae. Through either lens, Jager's narrative represents a magisterial contribution.--Robert Oppenheim "Asian Review of World Histories" (2/7/2024 12:00:00 AM)

A monumental achievement. Recounting the story of China's decline in East Asia, Jager provides a definitive reference for the diplomatic machinations of the great-power conflict in the late nineteenth century. This is narrative historical writing at its best.--Michael Robinson, author of Korea's Twentieth-Century Odyssey

For too long, the role of Korea has been in the shadows of East Asian history. With brilliant analysis and meticulous research, Jager shows that Korea's fate was actually crucial to shaping the Asia of the nineteenth century and the turbulent regional politics that followed all the way up to World War II. Essential for readers of East Asian history and geopolitics alike.--Rana Mitter, author of China's Good War: How World War II Is Shaping a New Nationalism

Beautifully written and deeply researched, The Other Great Game is a work of great importance and powerful insight. This gripping history offers a fresh interpretation of the age of empire at the turn of the twentieth century and a clear-eyed view of its long shadow.--Andrew Gordon, author of A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present