Kurzbeschreibung

The bestselling, thrilling and revelatory narrative of one of the most epic and consequential periods in twentieth-century history--the Arab Revolt, and the secret game to control the Middle East.

Beschreibung

Finalist for the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography
One of the Best Books of the Year:
The Christian Science Monitor
NPR
The Seattle Times
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Chicago Tribune
A New York Times Notable Book
The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War I was, in the words of T. E. Lawrence, "a sideshow of a sideshow." 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 center of it all was Lawrence himself. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in Syria; by 1917 he was riding into legend at the head of an Arab army as he fought a rearguard action against his own government and its imperial ambitions. Based on four years of intensive primary document research, Lawrence in Arabia definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed.

Rezension

"A fascinating book, the best work of military history in recent memory and an illuminating analysis of issues that still loom large today. . . . Fine, sophisticated, richly detailed . . . filled with invaluably complex and fine-tuned information. . . . Eminently readable. . . . For those already fascinated by Lawrence's exploits and familiar with his written accounts of them, Mr. Anderson's thoughtful, big-picture version only enriches the story it tells. . . . Beyond having a keen ear for memorable wording, Mr. Anderson has a gift for piecing together the conflicting interests of warring parties. . . . It's a big book in every sense, with a huge amount of terrain to cover."
- The New York Times
"Brilliant. . . . A dazzling accomplishment that combines superb historical research with a compelling narrative."
- The Seattle Times
"Thrilling. . . . Galvanizing and cinematic. . . . Anderson brilliantly evokes the upheavals and head-spinningly complex politics of an era. . . . It's a huge assignment, explaining the modern roots of the region as it emerged from the wreckage of war. But it is one that Anderson handles with panache. . . . His story is character-driven, exhilaratingly so. . . . Shows how individuals both shape history and are, at the same time, helpless before the dictates of great power politics."
- The Boston Globe
"Cuts through legend and speculation to offer perhaps the clearest account of Lawrence's often puzzling actions and personality. . . . 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."
- The Washington Post
"Superbly fine-tuned. . . . Anderson does a fine job of piecing together the many conflicting Middle East interests. . . . An original, illuminating history that requires and rewards close attention."
- Janet Maslin, Top 10 Favorite Books of the Year, The New York Times
"[Anderson's] expansive, mesmerizing, and - dare one say - cinematically detailed Lawrence in Arabia exemplifies the ways biography and history can enhance each other."
- The Wall Street Journal
"No four-hour movie can do real justice to the bureaucratic fumblings, the myriad spies, heroes and villains, the dense fugue of humanity at its best and worst operating in the Mideast war theater of 1914-17. Thrillingly, Scott Anderson's Lawrence in Arabia (four stars out of four) does exactly that, weaving enormous detail into its 500-plus pages with a propulsive narrative thread"
- USA Today
"Invigorating. . . . Through his large cast, Anderson is able to explore the muddles of the early 20th-century Middle East from several distinct and enlightening perspectives. . . . [An] engrossing, thoughtful and intricate account."
- The New York Times Book Review
"Anderson carries his erudition lightly, but there's enough scholarship there to make an academic proud. As with the best kind of yarns, you don't realize what you've learned until the narrator goes silent."
- The Daily Beast
"[A] well-researched, sweeping account . . . fresh and compelling. . . . A gripping narrative. . . . The book's broader achievement is that it reveals the incompetence and deceit of Lawrence's British superiors in shaping the postwar Middle East."
- Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Anderson's well-told tale of war, betrayal and depressing short-sightedness is also a vivid reminder of why the Middle East continues to preoccupy us."
- Richmond Times-Dispatch
"Anderson's magisterial study puts a complicated picture in context, showing how major powers' old follies led to the wars, religious strife and brutal dictatorships that now pollute the development of the Middle East."
- The Buffalo News
"Renders painfully clear how deeply the political structure of the Middle East has been born of eccentric fantasies."
- Esquire
"One of the more fascinating reads I have encountered in years. [Anderson's] cast of cha

Klappentext

One of the Best Books of the Year:
The Christian Science Monitor
NPR
The Seattle Times
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Chicago Tribune

A New York Times Notable Book

Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography

The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War I was, in the words of T. E. Lawrence, "a sideshow of a sideshow." 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 center of it all was Lawrence himself. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in Syria; by 1917 he was riding into legend at the head of an Arab army as he fought a rearguard action against his own government and its imperial ambitions. Based on four years of intensive primary document research, Lawrence in Arabia definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed.

Auszüge aus dem Buch

Introduction
On the morning of October 30, 1918, Colonel Thomas Edward Law- rence received a summons to Buckingham Palace. The king had
requested his presence.
The collective mood in London that day was euphoric. For the past four years and three months, Great Britain and much of the rest of the world had been consumed by the bloodiest conflict in recorded history, one that had claimed the lives of some sixteen million people across three continents. Now, with a speed that scarcely could have been imagined mere weeks earlier, it was all coming to an end. On that same day, one of Great Britain's three principal foes, the Ottoman Empire, was accept- ing peace terms, and the remaining two, Germany and Austria-Hungary, would shortly follow suit. Colonel Lawrence's contribution to that war effort had been in its Middle Eastern theater, and he too was caught quite off guard by its rapid close. At the beginning of that month, he had still been in the field assisting in the capture of Damascus, an event that heralded the collapse of the Ottoman army. Back in England for less than a week, he was already consulting with those senior British statesmen and generals tasked with mapping out the postwar borders of the Middle East, a once-fanciful endeavor that had now become quite urgent. Lawrence was apparently under the impression that his audience with King George V that morning was to discuss those ongoing deliberations.
He was mistaken. Once at the palace, the thirty-year-old colonel was ushered into a ballroom where, flanked by a half dozen dignitaries and a coterie of costumed courtiers, the king and queen soon entered. A low cushioned stool had been placed just before the king's raised dais, while to the monarch's immediate right, the lord chamberlain held a velvet pillow on which an array of medals rested. After introductions were made, George V fixed his guest with a smile: "I have some presents for you."
As a student of British history, Colonel Lawrence knew precisely what was about to occur. The pedestal was an investiture stool, upon which he was to kneel as the king performed the elaborate, centuries-old ceremony - the conferring of a sash and the medals on the pillow, the tap- ping with a sword and the intoning of an oath - that would make him a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
It was a moment T. E. Lawrence had long dreamed of. As a boy, he was obsessed with medieval history and the tales of King Arthur's court, and his greatest ambition, he once wrote, was to be knighted by the age of thirty. On that morning, his youthful aspiration was about to be fulfilled.
A couple of details added to the honor. Over the past four years, King George had given out so many commendations and medals to his nation's soldiers that even knighthoods were now generally bestowed en masse; in the autumn of 1918, a private investiture like Lawrence's was practically unheard of. Also unusual was the presence of Queen Mary. She normally eschewed these sorts of ceremonies, but she had been so stirred by the accounts of T. E. Lawrence's wartime deeds as to make an exception in his case.
Except Lawrence didn't kneel. Instead, just as the ceremony got under way, he quietly informed the king that he was refusing the honor.
There followed a moment of confusion. Over the nine-hundred-year history of the monarchy, the refusal of knighthood was such an extraor- dinary event that there was no protocol for how to handle it. Eventually, King George returned to the lord chamberlain's pillow the medal he had been awkwardly holding, and under the baleful gaze of a furious Queen Mary, Colonel Lawrence turned and walked away.
TODAY, MOR