Setting the Desert on Fire: T. E. Lawrence and Britain's Secret War in Arabia, 1916-1918 - Softcover

Barr, James

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393335275 ISBN 13: 9780393335279

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009

Synopsis

"Barr turns history into a drama, with bright writing and a fascinating cast of characters.” ―Mary Foster, Associated Press

T. E. Lawrence’s classic Seven Pillars of Wisdom made the Arab revolt a legend and helped turn him into the mythical “Lawrence of Arabia.” Setting the Desert on Fire is both a masterly account of the intrigue behind the revolt and its startling consequences for the present-day Middle East and a portrait of Lawrence that brings fresh insight to the true nature of the master mythmaker.

31 photos; 3 maps

About this title

About the Author:

James Barr is the author of Setting the Desert on Fire. During the research for A Line in the Sand he was a Visiting Fellow at St Antony’s College, Oxford. He lives in London.

From Publishers Weekly:

British historian Barr re-examines World War I's  'Great Arab Revolt'  led by the legendary Lawrence of Arabia in this exhaustively researched and vividly narrated history. Thomas Edward Lawrence was a young British intelligence officer when he undertook to organize Arab resistance to the Ottoman Empire, a German ally. The Turkish (Ottoman) sultan was also the caliph—spiritual leader of Muslims worldwide—and the British feared that his call for jihad threatened their eastern empire. To secure Arab support against the Turks, the British offered them a hazy declaration of future independence. Led by Lawrence, an eccentric amateur who adopted the flowing robes of his desert allies, the Arabs began a guerrilla campaign against the Hijaz Railway, the Turks' supply line between Damascus and Medina. Lawrence's driving obsession was to capture Damascus and foil French ambitions in Syria. As the war in Europe was ending, the Arabs occupied Damascus and Lawrence installed an Arab government. Upon the war's conclusion, Middle Eastern matters were peripheral. Britain then yielded Syria to France, denying Arab independence and initiating a new legacy, of increasingly bitter relations. Barr expertly navigates an intriguing landscape of shifting alliances and labyrinthine politics peopled with eccentric characters to demystify a fascinating legend. illus. (Feb.)
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About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0393335275
• ISBN 13: 9780393335279
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 402