Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East - Hardcover

Anderson, Scott

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1782391991 ISBN 13: 9781782391999

Publisher: Atlantic Books, 2014

Synopsis

The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War One was, in the words of T.E. Lawrence, 'a sideshow of a sideshow'. Amidst the slaughter in European trenches, the Western combatants paid scant attention to the Middle Eastern theatre. 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 centre of it all was Lawrence. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in the sands of Syria; by 1917 he was battling both the enemy and his own government to bring about the vision he had for the Arab people. Operating in the Middle East at the same time, but to wildly different ends, were three other important players: a German attach an American oilman and a committed Zionist. The intertwined paths of these four young men - the schemes they put in place, the battles they fought, the betrayals they endured and committed - mirror the grandeur, intrigue and tragedy of the war in the desert.

About this title

Review

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, August 2013: Scott Anderson’s Lawrence in Arabia is a marvel of a history book. The research is impeccable. The story is fascinating and unforgettable. And the characters are so compelling that they seem to have been plucked from a novel. During World War I, the course of the modern day Middle East was set by a handful of young, low-ranking actors who exerted oversized influence on the region. Anderson focuses our attention on four men: a minor German diplomat and spy, an American oilman descended from the Yale family, a Romanian-born agronomist, and T.E. Lawrence himself. As we witness the western nations attempting to carve up a region that they were never able to master, these adventurous and often duplicitous men come to full life--none more so than Lawrence. The amount of research it must have taken to write this book is astounding. But there is no filler here: this is the kind of detail that causes the narrative to pop, that makes it live and breathe, and it will keep you reading long into the night. --Chris Schluep

About the Author

SCOTT ANDERSON is a veteran war correspondent whose work frequently appears in New York Times Magazine and Vanity Fair.

Edition details

• Publisher: Atlantic Books
• Publication date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1782391991
• ISBN 13: 9781782391999
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 575