Impressive in its scope and depth of research, I still found Lawrence in Arabia very much like David Lean's famous film--long and a touch slow-going.
Some of my hesitance is my own lack of background knowledge of Middle Eastern history and the politics at play in the early years of the Twentieth Century, but slogging through the names, places, and the labyrinth that was/is the British hierarchy, was at times a chore.
Nevertheless, it's a fascinating biography of T.E. Lawrence and a good examination of how the modern Middle East developed.
from the publisher: The Arab Revolt against the Turks during World War I was, in the words of T.E. Lawrence, "a sideshow of a sideshow." As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far removed from the corridors of power.
At the center of it all was Lawrence himself. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in Syria; by 1917 he was riding into legend at the head of an Arab army as he fought a rearguard action against his own government and its imperial ambitions. Based on four years of intensive primary document research, Lawrence in Arabia definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed.
Some of my hesitance is my own lack of background knowledge of Middle Eastern history and the politics at play in the early years of the Twentieth Century, but slogging through the names, places, and the labyrinth that was/is the British hierarchy, was at times a chore.
Nevertheless, it's a fascinating biography of T.E. Lawrence and a good examination of how the modern Middle East developed.
from the publisher: The Arab Revolt against the Turks during World War I was, in the words of T.E. Lawrence, "a sideshow of a sideshow." As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far removed from the corridors of power.
At the center of it all was Lawrence himself. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in Syria; by 1917 he was riding into legend at the head of an Arab army as he fought a rearguard action against his own government and its imperial ambitions. Based on four years of intensive primary document research, Lawrence in Arabia definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed.
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