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

Product Information

The daring exploits of British officers are also recounted to highlight the role of individuals in influencing the campaign. In January 1914, Woolley and Lawrence were co-opted by the British military as an archaeological smokescreen for a British military survey of the Negev desert. His most famous work, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, is considered a classic of war literature and travel writing. Review: June 30, 2000, Lawrence of Arabia: A Film’s Anthropology, Felicity Collins, La Trobe University, Screening the Past. His record-breaking expeditions include travel by riverboat, hovercraft, man-haul sledge, skidoo, Land Rover and skis.

It is an admirable attempt to understand the war in all its dimensions, but the figure of Lawrence often overshadows some of the more interesting strands that the book otherwise wishes to analyse. For this, he worked from a notebook that he kept while enlisted, writing of the daily lives of enlisted men and his desire to be a part of something larger than himself. In later life, Lawrence arranged to pay a military colleague to administer beatings to him, [230] and to be subjected to severe formal tests of fitness and stamina. The secret Sykes-Picot Agreement between France and Britain contradicted the promises of independence that he had made to the Arabs and frustrated his work.Newcombe arrived while Lawrence was preparing to leave Arabia, but Faisal intervened urgently, asking that Lawrence's assignment become permanent. The Arab Revolt began in June 1916, but it bogged down after a few successes, with a real risk that the Ottoman forces would advance along the coast of the Red Sea and recapture Mecca. He worked closely with Emir Faisal, a leader of the revolt, and he participated, sometimes as leader, in military actions against the Ottoman armed forces, culminating in the capture of Damascus in October 1918.

Scott Anderson, Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East. The book is a memoir of his experiences in the desert, where he served as a liaison officer between the Arab tribes and the British army. Erklärt nicht nur die "arabische" Geschichte von Lawrence von Arabien, sondern parallel laufende Biographien von drei weiteren Personen in der Zeit von ca. First edition, first impression, limited issue, number 51 of 315 copies in quarto with 10 colour plates which were printed in monochrome in the standard octavo issue. Richard Meinertzhagen’s diary account of his ruse to trick Turkish officers of British plans through a dropped fake staff officer’s handbook – known as the Haversack affair – is discussed.Lawrence claimed that he ran away from home around 1905 and served for a few weeks as a boy soldier with the Royal Garrison Artillery at St Mawes Castle in Cornwall, from which he was bought out. And there was even an American, William Yale – and, yes, the name comes from the family that founded the university – an oilman and spy working first for Middle Eastern interests of the Standard Oil of New York, but later for the US State Department.

In our two years' partnership under fire they grew accustomed to believing me and to think my government, like myself, sincere. Lawrence loved the fractious, headstrong and thoroughly unhousetrained Arab tribes, and was proud of having championed their commander in the field, Emir Faisal, a scion of the Hashemites, the hereditary custodians of Mecca.Anderson has produced a compelling account of Western hubris, derring-do, intrigue and outright fraud that hastened - and complicated - the troubled birth of the modern Middle East. And yet for all Lawrence's outsider status and unconventional views, Britain's military machine in the Middle East contained enough sound men for him to thrive – and to emerge from the war one of the most admired men in Britain. Prufer was a brilliant linguist and an energetic lothario – his many girlfriends included Minna "Fanny" Weizmann, whose brother Chaim was Europe's most prominent Zionist and went on to become Israel's first president.