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Title: Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a Triumph by Thomas E. Lawrence ISBN: 0-385-07015-2 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: June, 1935 Format: Hardcover List Price(USD): $6.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.83 (35 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Foundations of conflict
Comment: It's difficult to describe the experience of reading The Seven Pillars. It is by turns beautiful and ugly. It is military history. It is a subjective view provided by a man very much of his time. It is an apology and an excuse for the necessities of war. It is a portrait of a tribe that Lawrence came to respect and even love. It is a travel book about life in the desert at the time of writing. It is inevitably a mix of fact and history and fiction and probably at least a little bit of wishful thinking.
It's a pretty amazing book to read.
A few notes:
Before you read the book, do some quick background reading on the history that's involved. This will help avoid confustion.
Be prepared for a long read! It's not only a long book, it's an extremely dense book. The choppiness and frequent changes in tone make it hard to put on the reading cruise control.
Read it as a product of its time. Lawrence was a fascinating man, but not without his prejudices or faults.
Rating: 5
Summary: Reviewer Anderson hits nail on head with his review
Comment: Seldom does a reviewer do as good a job putting a classic into perspective as does reviewer Charles W. Anderson. Look at his comment below and you will understand why all foreigners currently charged with putting Iraq back together need to take care before they proceed!
Outsiders must insert their positions only at critical control points with a view towards preventing catastrophe. In that sense, it is Westerners who must fight the guerrilla campaign and not become a fixed target for the various factions fighting to become king of the mountain.
As did Anderson, I found this book to be of exceptional value to gain some insight into the Arab mindset. As Lawrence indicates in his writings, Feisal would likely have put together a great nation if only the more educated and sophisticated European powers would have allowed it.
Mr. Anderson is right also is mourning the first Middle East regime change imposed by France when they forced Feisal to leave Syria. How ironic that France so strongly opposed the more recent necessary regime change!
Read 7 Pillars of Wisdom and learn from a master!
Rating: 5
Summary: "Precautionary murder" vs. "preemptive defense."
Comment: Seven Pillars of Wisdom is fascinating from cover to cover. The book is on some levels Lawrence's study of himself as much as a history of the battles in which he was involved. He writes, "Any protestation of the truth from me was called modesty, self-depreciation. It always irritated me, this silly confusion of shyness, which was conduct, with modesty, which was a point of view... I was not modest, but ashamed of my awkwardness, of my physical envelope, of my solitary unlikeness which made me no companion, but an acquaintance, complete, angular, uncomfortable, as a crystal." This type of introspection is most uncommon in a military man.
Not a squeamish soldier, Lawrence was once forced into a situation in which he executed a murderer, and on another occasion he authorized "take no prisoners" after the Turks conducted one of their numerous brutal atrocities. But there were some things even Lawrence recognized as boundaries of civilized behavior best not transgressed. In the final chapters he explains why he thought better of his initial inclination to kill several petty warlords who were participating in and would in the future likely betray the Arab Revolt -- he did not want to teach his Arab followers that "precautionary murder" was a legitimate part of political struggle. One is left wondering what he would have to say about today's politicians who promote "preemptive defense" as a legitimate strategy and standing policy. At least Lawrence's terminology was far more honest and direct.
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Title: A Prince of Our Disorder: The Life of T. E. Lawrence by John E. MacK ISBN: 0674704940 Publisher: Harvard Univ Pr Pub. Date: April, 1998 List Price(USD): $21.50 |
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Title: With Lawrence in Arabia: Lost Treasures by Lowell Thomas, Phillip Knightley ISBN: 1853755001 Publisher: Prion Books Pub. Date: April, 2003 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Lawrence of Arabia (Da Capo Paperback) by Basil Henry Liddell Hart, Henry, Sir Basil, Hart Liddell, B. H. Liddell Hart ISBN: 0306803542 Publisher: DaCapo Press Pub. Date: May, 1989 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title:Lawrence of Arabia ASIN: B00003CXB2 Publisher: Columbia Tri-Star Pub. Date: 03 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $28.98 Comparison N/A, buy it from Amazon for $23.76 |
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Title: A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East by David Fromkin ISBN: 0805068848 Publisher: Owl Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
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