Lawrence and Aaronsohn: T. E. Lawrence, Aaron Aaronsohn, and the Seeds of the Arab-Israeli Conflict - Hardcover

Florence, Ronald

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670063517 ISBN 13: 9780670063512

Publisher: Viking Adult, 2007

Synopsis

Traces the efforts of Lawrence of Arabia and a Jewish agronomist from Palestine to map the land and conflicts of the modern Middle East, documenting their audacious imaginings of the Arab and Jewish nations in the aftermath of World War I and establishment of a secret spy network.

About this title

About the Author

Ronald Florence is a historian and novelist, and the author of The Gypsy Man, The Perfect Machine and Blood Libel. This is his ninth book.

Reviews

In this dual biography of two key figures in Middle Eastern history, Florence (Blood Libel) grounds the clash of Arab and Jewish nationalisms in the Ottoman Empire's collapse during WWI. T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia) was a flamboyant British officer and romantic partisan of a mythologized Arab people, who cobbled together an anti-Turkish revolt out of fractious Bedouin clans. Aaron Aaronsohn, a Palestinian Jew and an agronomist who pioneered the Zionist effort to make the desert bloom, organized a spy ring to feed intelligence on Ottoman defenses in Palestine to the British. There's suspense and pathos in Florence's saga of the war-torn Middle East—Aaronsohn's sister, also a spy, was tortured by the Turks and committed suicide—along with eye-glazing diplomatic wrangling as Aaronsohn and Lawrence try to influence British policy toward conquered Ottoman lands. Florence's portraits of his protagonists color his account of the competing political claims. His depiction of Aaronsohn makes Zionism the more authentic nation-building project, deeply rooted in the careful stewardship of a soil watered with Zionist blood, while Arab nationalism comes off as largely a shallow, alien conceit imported by an eccentric Englishman to Bedouin more interested in booty than independence. (See alsoAaronsohn's Maps: The Untold Story of the Man Who Might Have Created Peace in the Middle East, reviewed on p. 44.) Photos. (Aug. 20)
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Florence chronicles the birth of the modern Middle East by narrating the intersecting lives of two remarkable men. The portrait of T. E. Lawrence—a deeply British romantic who, despite his talent as a tactician, was unable to deliver on his promises to the Arab fighters he had led during the First World War—is persuasive if not particularly original. Florence is clearly much more taken with the less celebrated Aaron Aaronsohn, a brilliant agronomist instrumental to the survival of early Zionist settlements in Palestine. He became a spy for the British, at great risk to himself and his family. (His sister was tortured by Turkish officers who suspected her, correctly, of assisting in the espionage.) Florence skillfully blends geopolitical history and cloak-and-dagger tales but, regrettably, includes no detailed portrait of any Arab figure; the Arabs serve, instead, to inspire or frustrate the designs of others, whether British, Jewish, or Turkish.
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T. E. Lawrence is best known for his military exploits as a leader of the Arab Revolt against the Turks during World War I. But during the war, and especially in the postwar diplomatic maneuvering, Lawrence played a strong role in the effort to create an Arab state. The far more obscure Aaron Aaronsohn, a Palestinian agronomist and Zionist, worked assiduously to promote both British and Jewish interests in the Middle East. Florence has written an interesting and informative dual biography of these men, who, he asserts, helped shape the course of the region, for better or worse. The contrast between the two was great. Lawrence was small, effete, soft-spoken, but had a knack for self-promotion. Although his military skills and contributions have been overrated, he was undeniably courageous and passionately devoted to the Arab cause. Aaronsohn was physically imposing and bombastic, but he ran a highly effective spy network that kept the British well informed about Turkish military movements in Palestine. Florence's well-written and frequently surprising work sheds light on usually neglected aspects of Middle Eastern history. Freeman, Jay

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670063517
• ISBN 13: 9780670063512
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 528