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

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In the summer of 1909, he set out alone on a three-month walking tour of crusader castles in Ottoman Syria, during which he travelled 1,000 miles (1,600 km) on foot. He was born out of wedlock in August 1888 to Sarah Junner (1861–1959), a governess, and Sir Thomas Chapman, 7th Baronet (1846–1919), an Anglo-Irish aristocrat. In reality, this famous camel ride lasted for more than 70 hours and was interrupted by two long breaks for sleeping, which Lawrence omitted when he wrote his book. As for Faisal, he was kicked out of Syria by the French in 1920 and the Iraqi monarchy he later founded under British auspices lasted until 1958, when it was overthrown in a republican revolution.

One of the doctors attending him was neurosurgeon Hugh Cairns, who consequently began a long study of the loss of life by motorcycle dispatch riders through head injuries. This would create a credible Pan-Islamic message that could have been dangerous for Britain, which was in severe difficulties in the Gallipoli Campaign. He met Arab nationalists, counselling them to avoid revolt until the arrival of Faisal's forces, and he attacked a bridge to create the impression of guerrilla activity.While there was never open combat, there was regular conflict over access to land and treatment of the local workforce; Lawrence gained experience in Middle Eastern leadership practices and conflict resolution. John Bruce first wrote on this topic, including some other statements that were not credible, but Lawrence's biographers regard the beatings as established fact. Later, some began to justify this sterile process, and swore that friends quivering together in the yielding sand with intimate hot limbs in supreme embrace, found there hidden in the darkness a sensual co-efficient of the mental passion which was welding our souls and spirits in one flaming effort [to secure Arab independence]. He campaigned for his and Churchill's vision of the Middle East, publishing pieces in multiple newspapers, including The Times, The Observer, The Daily Mail, and The Daily Express. Newcombe had not yet arrived in the area and the matter was of some urgency, so Lawrence was sent in his place.

In October of that year, Sarah was captured by the Ottomans, whom she defied, first by withstanding brutal treatment, then by killing herself. Again he vowed not to take any fees from the publication, partly to appease the subscribers to Seven Pillars who had paid dearly for their editions. He was invited to take his show to England, and he agreed to do so provided that he was personally invited by the King and provided the use of either Drury Lane or Covent Garden.Having just finished reading it today, I have the feeling this has broadened my horizons beyond Lawrence in Arabia and I am sure I will be reading more about the imperial folly side of things in the near future.

The Ottoman attackers were mainly Arab peasants conscripted from the villages of Syria, and they faced Punjabi, Rajput and Gurkha regulars from Northern India. On 16 October 1916, Lawrence was sent to the Hejaz on an intelligence-gathering mission led by Ronald Storrs. He interviewed Sharif Hussein's sons Ali, Abdullah, and Faisal, [66] and concluded that Faisal was the best candidate to lead the Revolt. Alongside Lawrence, we read about the German anthropologist and spy Curt Prüfer, who worked with the Turks and one of whose first agents (and sometime mistress) was Minna Weizmann, sister of the Zionist who would later become the first President of Israel. Operating in the Middle East at the same time, but to wildly different ends, were three other important players: a German attache, an American oilman and a committed Zionist.I love the idea that each book is numbered and limited, they're extra special because they're personalised with those sought-after signatures, and they are not on tip-in pages.