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HOW IMPERIAL AMBITIONS STIRRED A POT THAT'S NOW BOILING OVER
The New York Times
September 9, 2013 Monday
By JANET MASLIN
LAWRENCE IN ARABIA War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making
of the Modern Middle East By Scott Anderson Illustrated. 577
pages. Doubleday. $28.95.
Scott Anderson's fine, sophisticated, richly detailed "Lawrence in
Arabia" is filled with invaluably complex and fine-tuned information.
This demanding but eminently readable account of the Middle East during
World War I is certainly no hagiographic T. E. Lawrence biography,
as the tiny nuance ("in," not "of") coloring its title makes clear.
Mr. Anderson does not filter the tricky history of a crucially
important era through any individual's perspective. Nor does he see
Lawrence as the only schemer trying to manipulate Arab destiny; this
book has an assortment of principal players, only one of whom managed
to become so famous. As to why such acclaim elevated one renegade
Briton and his feat of creating a guerrilla Bedouin army, Mr. Anderson
writes that the short answer may seem anticlimactic. His reason: This
was a time when the seed was planted for the Arab world "to define
itself less by what it aspires to become than what it is opposed to:
colonialism, Zionism, Western imperialism in its many forms."
Clarity was hard to find, and so, after such wanton loss of life, were
victors. But heroes were needed, and here was a shoo-in. According to
the book, "Lawrence was able to become 'Lawrence of Arabia' because
no one was paying much attention."
That does not make Mr. Anderson's account a debunking. 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. "Lawrence in Arabia"
emphasizes the Gordian difficulties facing any strategist from any
of the numerous contingents involved either in fighting for Arab
freedom from the Ottoman Empire or looking to carve up Arab land once
the fighting was over. He illustrates how difficult it was to have
any foresight at all, let along to see clearly, and he reserves his
greatest interest for players whose imaginations were most fertile.
Lawrence was the best and most eloquent of these manipulators, but
he was by no means alone.
The book is careful to acknowledge aspects of Lawrence's skill that
are not always done justice. Mr. Anderson is especially illuminating
about Lawrence's purely political gifts: his way of anticipating the
fallout from strategic or military maneuvers, his "peculiar skill at
polite belligerence," his no-nonsense powers of description.
Drawing from the vast body of Lawrence's writing, Mr. Anderson finds
this bit of irreverence: "Jerusalem is a dirty town which all Semitic
religions have made holy. ... In it the united forces of the past
are so strong that the city fails to have a present; its people,
with the rarest exceptions, are characterless as hotel servants,
living on the crowd of visitors passing through."
Beyond having a keen ear for memorable wording, Mr. Anderson has
a gift for piecing together the conflicting interests of warring
parties. His account of the grisly British debacle at Gallipoli and
the bad decisions leading up to it display this book's analytic powers
at their best. He explains why Alexandretta, now called of Iskenderun,
on the Mediterranean near the Turkish-Syrian border, looked to Lawrence
and others like the Ottoman Empire's most vulnerable point.
It describes the 1914 incident in which a British warship, the Doris,
managed almost accidentally to expose how weakly defended the area was.
But "throughout history," he adds, "there have been occasions when
a vastly superior military force has managed, against all odds, to
snatch defeat from all but certain victory." Though Lawrence imagined
the Syrian and Armenian uprisings that might further undermine Ottoman
control of the Alexandretta region, the British looked eastward,
designating the Dardanelles as the place to send wave after wave of
troops. Fully exposed to the enemy as they made their naval landing,
they were massacred to no strategic effect at all. Lawrence believed
that Britain's decision had been influenced by the desire of its ally
France to keep Syria stable -- and lay claim to it after the war.
As "Lawrence in Arabia" lays out Lawrence's career, and his delicate
negotiations to unite the sons of King Hussein to create an Arab
revolt against the Turks, it also follows other diplomatic efforts.
One of the book's startling revelations about Curt Prufer, a German
diplomat in Cairo with espionage connections, is that he deployed
Minna Weizmann -- a seldom-mentioned sister of Chaim Weizmann,
Israel's first president -- as a pro-German spy. Also involved in
espionage was Aaron Aaronsohn, a Zionist and agronomist, who worked
his way into the good graces of the Ottoman regime.
The book also follows the track of the American William Yale, roaming
the region to do the bidding of Standard Oil of New York, known as
Socony. He was instrumental in helping the company lay claims in
Palestine, "except there was a key detail in all this that Socony saw
no reason to trouble the Turks with," Mr. Anderson writes. Drilling
for oil could have helped the Turkish war effort, but Yale's employers
had no intention of doing so until the war was over.
"Lawrence in Arabia" is a fascinating book, the best work of military
history in recent memory and an illuminating analysis of issues that
still loom large today. It's a big book in every sense, with a huge
amount of terrain to cover. So it is perhaps understandable that
Mr. Anderson makes only passing and none too flattering reference to
David Lean's magnificent film about Lawrence.
But readers who know the movie are apt to summon it more than he does.
Yes, it was history a la Hollywood, with moments of clear
exaggeration. But its effort to depict Lawrence, his military raids,
the tribal leaders with whom he dealt, the inept British military
effort and the sly French diplomatic one are all shown by this book
to be unusually faithful to the facts. It's high praise for both the
visually grand film and this grandly ambitious book to say that they
do have a lot in common.
URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/books/scott-andersons-lawrence-in-arabia-revisits-legends.html
The New York Times
September 9, 2013 Monday
By JANET MASLIN
LAWRENCE IN ARABIA War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making
of the Modern Middle East By Scott Anderson Illustrated. 577
pages. Doubleday. $28.95.
Scott Anderson's fine, sophisticated, richly detailed "Lawrence in
Arabia" is filled with invaluably complex and fine-tuned information.
This demanding but eminently readable account of the Middle East during
World War I is certainly no hagiographic T. E. Lawrence biography,
as the tiny nuance ("in," not "of") coloring its title makes clear.
Mr. Anderson does not filter the tricky history of a crucially
important era through any individual's perspective. Nor does he see
Lawrence as the only schemer trying to manipulate Arab destiny; this
book has an assortment of principal players, only one of whom managed
to become so famous. As to why such acclaim elevated one renegade
Briton and his feat of creating a guerrilla Bedouin army, Mr. Anderson
writes that the short answer may seem anticlimactic. His reason: This
was a time when the seed was planted for the Arab world "to define
itself less by what it aspires to become than what it is opposed to:
colonialism, Zionism, Western imperialism in its many forms."
Clarity was hard to find, and so, after such wanton loss of life, were
victors. But heroes were needed, and here was a shoo-in. According to
the book, "Lawrence was able to become 'Lawrence of Arabia' because
no one was paying much attention."
That does not make Mr. Anderson's account a debunking. 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. "Lawrence in Arabia"
emphasizes the Gordian difficulties facing any strategist from any
of the numerous contingents involved either in fighting for Arab
freedom from the Ottoman Empire or looking to carve up Arab land once
the fighting was over. He illustrates how difficult it was to have
any foresight at all, let along to see clearly, and he reserves his
greatest interest for players whose imaginations were most fertile.
Lawrence was the best and most eloquent of these manipulators, but
he was by no means alone.
The book is careful to acknowledge aspects of Lawrence's skill that
are not always done justice. Mr. Anderson is especially illuminating
about Lawrence's purely political gifts: his way of anticipating the
fallout from strategic or military maneuvers, his "peculiar skill at
polite belligerence," his no-nonsense powers of description.
Drawing from the vast body of Lawrence's writing, Mr. Anderson finds
this bit of irreverence: "Jerusalem is a dirty town which all Semitic
religions have made holy. ... In it the united forces of the past
are so strong that the city fails to have a present; its people,
with the rarest exceptions, are characterless as hotel servants,
living on the crowd of visitors passing through."
Beyond having a keen ear for memorable wording, Mr. Anderson has
a gift for piecing together the conflicting interests of warring
parties. His account of the grisly British debacle at Gallipoli and
the bad decisions leading up to it display this book's analytic powers
at their best. He explains why Alexandretta, now called of Iskenderun,
on the Mediterranean near the Turkish-Syrian border, looked to Lawrence
and others like the Ottoman Empire's most vulnerable point.
It describes the 1914 incident in which a British warship, the Doris,
managed almost accidentally to expose how weakly defended the area was.
But "throughout history," he adds, "there have been occasions when
a vastly superior military force has managed, against all odds, to
snatch defeat from all but certain victory." Though Lawrence imagined
the Syrian and Armenian uprisings that might further undermine Ottoman
control of the Alexandretta region, the British looked eastward,
designating the Dardanelles as the place to send wave after wave of
troops. Fully exposed to the enemy as they made their naval landing,
they were massacred to no strategic effect at all. Lawrence believed
that Britain's decision had been influenced by the desire of its ally
France to keep Syria stable -- and lay claim to it after the war.
As "Lawrence in Arabia" lays out Lawrence's career, and his delicate
negotiations to unite the sons of King Hussein to create an Arab
revolt against the Turks, it also follows other diplomatic efforts.
One of the book's startling revelations about Curt Prufer, a German
diplomat in Cairo with espionage connections, is that he deployed
Minna Weizmann -- a seldom-mentioned sister of Chaim Weizmann,
Israel's first president -- as a pro-German spy. Also involved in
espionage was Aaron Aaronsohn, a Zionist and agronomist, who worked
his way into the good graces of the Ottoman regime.
The book also follows the track of the American William Yale, roaming
the region to do the bidding of Standard Oil of New York, known as
Socony. He was instrumental in helping the company lay claims in
Palestine, "except there was a key detail in all this that Socony saw
no reason to trouble the Turks with," Mr. Anderson writes. Drilling
for oil could have helped the Turkish war effort, but Yale's employers
had no intention of doing so until the war was over.
"Lawrence in Arabia" is a fascinating book, the best work of military
history in recent memory and an illuminating analysis of issues that
still loom large today. It's a big book in every sense, with a huge
amount of terrain to cover. So it is perhaps understandable that
Mr. Anderson makes only passing and none too flattering reference to
David Lean's magnificent film about Lawrence.
But readers who know the movie are apt to summon it more than he does.
Yes, it was history a la Hollywood, with moments of clear
exaggeration. But its effort to depict Lawrence, his military raids,
the tribal leaders with whom he dealt, the inept British military
effort and the sly French diplomatic one are all shown by this book
to be unusually faithful to the facts. It's high praise for both the
visually grand film and this grandly ambitious book to say that they
do have a lot in common.
URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/09/books/scott-andersons-lawrence-in-arabia-revisits-legends.html