DESERT QUEEN: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia

ISBN-13:	9781400096190
Publisher:	Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/12/2005
Edition description:	Revised
Pages:	464
Sales rank:	104,842
Product dimensions:	5.18(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.02(d)

The definitive biography, mesmerizing and “richly textured ” (Chicago Tribune), that inspired the acclaimed documentary, Letters from Baghdad. • With a new Afterword • "Desert Queen...plucks Gertrude Bell out of the shadow of Lawrence of Arabia." —The Boston GlobeHere is the story of Gertrude Bell, who explored, mapped, and excavated the Arab world throughout the early twentieth century. Recruited by British intelligence during World War I, she played a crucial role in obtaining the loyalty of Arab leaders, and her connections and information provided the brains to match T. E. Lawrence's brawn. After the war, she played a major role in creating the modern Middle East and was, at the time, considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire.   In this masterful biography, Janet Wallach shows us the woman behind these achievements—a woman whose passion and defiant independence were at odds with the confined and custom-bound England she left behind. Too long eclipsed by Lawrence, Gertrude Bell emerges at last in her own right as a vital player on the stage of modern history, and as a woman whose life was both a heartbreaking story and a grand adventure.