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

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.

• Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature)
• A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East
• The Evolution of a Revolt (1920)
• The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East
• Seven Pillars of Wisdom
• Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World
• Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of T.E. Lawrence
• Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia
• The Arabs: A History
• ATTA (Semiotext(e) / Intervention Series)