Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson
Requirements: ePUB Reader | 7.7 MB
Overview:
A thrilling and revelatory narrative of one of the most epic and
consequential periods in 20th century history – the Arab Revolt and the
secret “great game” to control the Middle East The Arab Revolt against
the Turks in World War One was, in the words of T.E. Lawrence, “a
sideshow of a sideshow.” Amidst the slaughter in European trenches, the
Western combatants paid scant attention to the Middle Eastern theater.
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. Curt Prüfer was an effete academic attached to the
German embassy in Cairo, whose clandestine role was to foment Islamic
jihad against British rule. Aaron Aaronsohn was a renowned agronomist
and committed Zionist who gained the trust of the Ottoman governor of
Syria. William Yale was the fallen scion of the American aristocracy,
who traveled the Ottoman Empire on behalf of Standard Oil, dissembling
to the Turks in order gain valuable oil concessions. At the center of it
all was Lawrence. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating
ruins in the sands of Syria; by 1917 he was the most romantic figure of
World War One, battling both the enemy and his own government to bring
about the vision he had for the Arab people. The intertwined paths of
these four men – the schemes they put in place, the battles they fought,
the betrayals they endured and committed – mirror the grandeur,
intrigue and tragedy of the war in the desert. Prüfer became Germany’s
grand spymaster in the Middle East. Aaronsohn constructed an elaborate
Jewish spy-ring in Palestine, only to have the anti-Semitic and
bureaucratically-inept British first ignore and then misuse his
organization, at tragic personal cost. Yale would become the only
American intelligence agent in the entire Middle East – while still
secretly on the payroll of Standard Oil. And the enigmatic Lawrence rode
into legend at the head of an Arab army, even as he waged secret war
against his own nation’s imperial ambitions.
Based on years of
intensive primary document research, LAWRENCE IN ARABIA definitively
overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed.
Sweeping in its action, keen in its portraiture, acid in its
condemnation of the destruction wrought by European colonial plots, this
is a book that brilliantly captures the way in which the folly of the
past creates the anguish of the present.
Genre: Non Fiction | Biography | Politics
Download Instructions:
http://uploadrocket.net/r07kwc4l16um
Mirror:
http://ul.to/71w9acez
Nema komentara:
Objavi komentar