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Desember 16, 2012
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Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East (ALA Notable Books for Adults), by Scott Anderson
Gratis Ebook herunterladen Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East (ALA Notable Books for Adults), by Scott Anderson
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“Scott Anderson’s fine, sophisticated, richly detailed Lawrence in Arabia is filled with invaluably complex and fine-tuned information…. eminently readable…. 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….. illuminating…. Beyond having a keen ear for memorable wording, Mr. Anderson has a gift for piecing together the conflicting interests of warring parties….. 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…. 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.”—The New York Times "Thrilling....a work as galvanizing and cinematic as Lean’s masterpiece....It’s a huge assignment, explaining the modern roots of the region as it emerged from the wreckage of war. But it is one that Anderson handles with panache....Anderson brilliantly evokes the upheavals and head-spinningly complex politics of an era....His story is character-driven, exhilaratingly so — Prufer, Yale, and Aaronsohn’s stories are richly sketched....shows how individuals both shape history and are, at the same time, helpless before the dictates of great power politics."--The Boston Globe“No four-hour movie can do real justice to the bureaucratic fumblings, the myriad spies, heroes and villains, the dense fugue of humanity at its best and worst operating in the Mideast war theater of 1914-17. Thrillingly, Scott Anderson's Lawrence in Arabia (four stars out of four) does exactly that, weaving enormous detail into its 500-plus pages with a propulsive narrative thread”--USA Today, 4 Stars "Expansive, mesmerizing, and—dare one say—cinematically detailed "Lawrence in Arabia" exemplifies the ways biography and history can enhance each other."--The Wall Street Journal“Among the many individual stories of World War I that will doubtless be told and retold for the centenary years between 2014 and 2018, that of T.E. Lawrence stands out from all the rest…[Anderson’s] book could not be better timed. As global attention is drawn to Syria and Egypt, it is arresting to look back 100 years and see a familiar picture….The multi-character approach has the great virtue of opening up the story’s complexity. Through his large cast, Anderson is able to explore the muddles of the early 20th-century Middle East from several distinct and enlightening perspectives. Furthermore, while he maintains an invigorating pace, his fabulous details are given room to illuminate. And the book is thick with them, whether it is Lawrence attempting to collar a live leopard; Prufer arranging 10 days of “boozing, dancing and flirting” with a wayward German princess for Abbas Hilmi, the deposed khedive of Egypt; or Aaronsohn fending off a strikingly biblical plague of locusts.… [An] engrossing, thoughtful and intricate account.” --The New York Times Book Review [Editor’s Choice]“Scott Anderson’s Lawrence in Arabia is a gripping narrative featuring T.E. Lawrence, the adventurer, Arabist, and spy whose exploits in the First World War helped to shape the modern Middle East… A must read for anyone trying to understand the region.”-- Lionel Barber, The Financial Times"Brilliant....a dazzling accomplishment that combines superb historical research with a compelling narrative equal to any courtroom thriller."--The Seattle Times“Anderson carries his erudition lightly, but there's enough scholarship there to make an academic proud. As with the best kind of yarns, you don't realize what you've learned until the narrator goes silent.”--The Daily Beast “A terrifically well put-together book.”--Tom Ashbrook, On Point"In this well-researched, sweeping account of the life and times of T.E. Lawrence, author Scott Anderson offers a fresh and compelling look at the making of the modern Middle East....a gripping narrative that makes this nearly 600-page account hard to put down....The book’s broader achievement is that it reveals the incompetence and deceit of Lawrence’s British superiors in shaping the postwar Middle East. It also offers a revealing account of other British agents and those from the United States and Germany in the remarkable events of the period."--Minneapolis Star Tribune"Cuts through legend and speculation to offer perhaps the clearest account of Lawrence’s often puzzling actions and personality.....Anderson has produced a compelling account of Western hubris, derring-do, intrigue and outright fraud that hastened — and complicated — the troubled birth of the modern Middle East."--The Washington Post"Anderson’s well-told tale of war, betrayal and depressing short-sightedness is also a vivid reminder of why the Middle East continues to preoccupy us."--Richmond Times-Dispatch “Be prepared to be surprised. Scott Anderson is a great writer and I guarantee that you’ll be startled by what he’s uncovered about T.E. Lawrence’s role in what he himself called “a sideshow of a sideshow,” otherwise known as the Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War I…..Scott Anderson’s magisterial study puts a complicated picture in context, showing how major powers’ old follies led to the wars, religious strife and brutal dictatorships that now pollute the development of the Middle East.”--The Buffalo News "Renders painfully clear how deeply the political structure of the Middle East has been born of eccentric fantasies."--Esquire“Anderson has speckled this cast with little known associates of Lawrence who are just as enigmatic as he and probably just as important in the creation of the mess we know as the modern Middle East….Exciting”--Hudson Star Observer "It's thorough research clothed in smoothly written prose, Anderson's history strikes a perfect balance between scope and detail about a remarkable and mysterious character."--Booklist, starred review"A well-fleshed portrait of T.E. Lawrence brought in burnished relief against other scoundrels in the Arabian narrative....A lively, contrasting study of hubris and humility."--Kirkus Reviews"Readers seeking to understand why turmoil has been so omnipresent in the Middle East will benefit from Anderson's easy prose, which makes liberal use of primary sources and research, but reads like a political thriller."--Publishers Weekly"Anderson's genius is to show how the actions of these four men intertwined on many levels....His research is extensive and well integrated into the story, while the prose is as addictive and sophisticated as the best John le Carré thriller."--Shelf Talker“Lawrence of Arabia is said to have reinvented warfare, and Scott Anderson has now reinvented Lawrence. By placing him alongside the other adventurers and spies who roamed the Arabian war theater, Anderson brilliantly illuminates how the modern Middle East came to be. The research in this book is so daringly original, and the writing so spectacular, that it feels like I'm reading about the topic for the first time. A deep and utterly captivating reading experience.” --Sebastian Junger, New York Times bestselling author of WAR and THE PERFECT STORM "A startlingly rich and revealing portrait of one of history’s most iconic figures. Equally satisfying is the cast of obscure German and American agents nearly as eccentric as Lawrence himself. They exercised such outsized influence on shaping the world as we know it that reading about them here is not only revelatory but practically surreal. Anderson is an exquisite writer and dogged researcher, whose accounts of century-old brutalities are made utterly convincing by the knowledge that he has personally witnessed the sort of offhanded horror he’s unearthed in archives. Lovers of big 20th-century history will be in nirvana." --Tom Reiss, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE BLACK COUNT and THE ORIENTALIST"An amazing accomplishment. LAWRENCE IN ARABIA captures the bravado, surreality, grandeur of the Middle East in the birth throes of the 20th century. Anderson employs the highest order of dramatic narrative to create an indelible portrait of a great and enduring figure of war and politics. Along for the show is a cast of characters drawn straight from Graham Greene. This is history of the most vivid and relevant order."--Doug Stanton, New York Times bestselling author of HORSE SOLDIERS and IN HARM’S WAY “LAWRENCE IN ARABIA is a work of serious research and powerful insight, but it is so rich in incredible stories and glittering details that it felt like a guilty pleasure while I was reading it. Completely absorbing, sweeping in scope and riveting from the first word, this is a book that will stay with me for a long time.” --Candice Millard, New York Times bestselling author of DESTINY OF THE REPUBLIC and RIVER OF DOUBT “Few characters in history can match T.E. Lawrence for adventure, intrigue, or sheer enigma. Scott Anderson, an indefatigable reporter well-acquainted with the Arab world, has carefully reconstructed Lawrence's shadowy realm. Anderson shows how Lawrence, along with a surprisingly small cast of lesser-known rogues and operatives, laid the groundwork, wittingly or not, for the mess that is the modern Middle East. Here is an intimate history painted on a very large canvas, with one fantastically charismatic—and fabulously flawed—man at the dusty center of the tale.”--Hampton Sides, New York Times bestselling author of GHOST SOLDIERS and HELLHOUND ON HIS TRAIL
Über den Autor und weitere Mitwirkende
Scott Anderson is a veteran war correspondent who has reported from Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Northern Ireland, Chechnya, Sudan, Bosnia, El Salvador and many other strife-torn countries. A contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine, his work has also appeared in Vanity Fair, Esquire, Harper's and Outside. He is the author of novels Moonlight Hotel and Triage and of non-fiction books The Man Who Tried to Save the World and The 4 O'Clock Murders, and co-author of War Zones and Inside The League with his brother Jon Lee Anderson.
Alle Produktbeschreibungen
Produktinformation
Gebundene Ausgabe: 592 Seiten
Verlag: Doubleday (6. August 2013)
Sprache: Englisch
ISBN-10: 038553292X
ISBN-13: 978-0385532921
Größe und/oder Gewicht:
16,3 x 4,3 x 24,2 cm
Durchschnittliche Kundenbewertung:
4.5 von 5 Sternen
2 Kundenrezensionen
Amazon Bestseller-Rang:
Nr. 1.178.402 in Bücher (Siehe Top 100 in Bücher)
Das Buch erzählt die Geschichte des Nahen Ostens im 1. Weltkrieg aus interessanter Perspektive. Nämlich jener von Akteuren der mittleren Führungsebene, die aufgrund der damaligen Kommunikationstechnologie heute kaum vorstellbaren Spielraum hatten. Zentrale Figur ist natürlich T. E. Lawrence. Weiters wird das Wirken des deutschen Agenten Dr. Curt Prüfer, des Standard Oil Angestellten und Diplomaten William Yale sowie des zionistischen Aktivisten bzw. britischen Spions Aaron Aaronsohn geschildert.Gelungene Verküpfung von politischer, Kriegs- und Diplomatiegeschichte, welche die heutigen Probleme in der Region verstehen hilft. Kernpunkte dieser Ursachengeschichte sind das kolonialistische Sykes–Picot Abkommen sowie die Balfour Deklaration. Erschütternd ist die Schilderung des Versagens der britischen Generäle und das damit verbundene Verheizen der Empire Truppen im Kampf gegen eine militärisch drittklassige Macht, das Osmanische Reich. Die britischen Rückschläge auf dem Schlachtfeld machten die Unterstützung des arabischen Aufstands unabdingbar.Gut geschriebenes Buch in ebenso gut verständlichem Englisch. Kaufempfehlung für jeden, der sich für die Biographie Lawrence' oder die Geschichte der Region interessiert.
Good historical data and especially interesting to read right now. Some things are easier to understand with this background information.
I have been stung by T. E. Lawrence's legend, myth and enigma ever since my Father bundled myself, Brother and Mother together explaining that he had just seen the newly opened film Lawrence of Arabia while on a business trip. That very next weekend we went down to Hollywood to see the three plus hour movie (I was bored to tears). Being surprised and seeing my Father's enthusiasm I began to read more about Lawrence and World War One and the Arab Revolt. I saw the film several more times over that year and began what has been a lifelong hobby as I have collected books, articles and research on LAWRENCE. So anytime there is a new Lawrence biography I am pleased in the expectation that others too will discover this unique, flawed and mysterious man.This month we have the release of Scott Anderson's new book LAWRENCE IN ARABIA which for some reason felt it important to replace the word OF with the word IN. And although I have some concerns with some of Anderson's characterizations and his depiction of Lawrence especially in his post war life I think the book is a tremendously good read that takes on a much broader scope than just being a Lawrence biography.Anderson gives us a broader picture of how the Arab Revolt and Lawrence's roll tied into other World War I campaigns. There is a good section on how Lawrence and others proposed early in the war that the British attack the Ottoman Empire (who controlled the Middle East) at Alexandretta (near Aleppo which is much in the news today). But instead Winston Chruchill and the British war planners attacked Gallipoli resulting and a lost opportunity and a crushing defeat. If Alexandretta had been captured and the Ottoman Empire split in two there may have been no need for an Arab revolt.The book tries to be a biography of Lawrence asking how did Lawrence do it (answer no one was looking) and three others: Curt Prufer a German spy who tries to get Arabs to attack the Suez Canal, Aaron Aaronsohn the Jewish Zionist who along with his sister set up pro-British spy ring in Palestine, and William Yale who working for Standard Oil traveled the Middle East. The problem with these three other individuals with the possible exception of Aaronsohn is that they are at best interesting footnotes except that they do help expand the readers understanding of people and events beyond the scope of the Lawrence story. And although I liked Anderson's structure I thought the Aaronsohn story was better told in Ronald Florence's 2007 book LAWRENCE AND AARONSOHN, T.E. Lawrence, Aaron Aaronshon, and the Seeds of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (Anderson quotes Florence in several of the Aaronshon sections). As to Prufer and Yale I don't recall ever hearing about them before this book.Anderson's book justifiably spends a lot of time discussing the Sykes/Picot treaty between Britain and France and the person of Mark Sykes who was a major political player and is a major character in the book. Much more so than even Aaronshon. His personal and political story really is what the book's subtitle is about.... Deceit... Imperial Folly... and the making of the modern Middle East. Add Sykes/Picot with the Balfour Declaration and you have the unbelievable colonialism arrogance that Lawrence opposed in his support of an independent Arab nation. What the Arab's hoped to gain by their revolt.This brings me to a point in Anderson's book that really disturbed me when I read it. The fact that Anderson calls Lawrence out as a TRAITOR. This on pages 270-271, "....in any wartime army at any point in history - The divulging of a secret treaty to a third party was considered a consummate act of treason, one sure to win the offender a long prison sentence if not an appointment with a firing squad. Yet a some point during those early days of February in Wejh, Lawrence took Faisal aside and did precisely that, revealing to him both the existence and salient details of Sykes-Picot." No one doubts that Lawrence at this time knew of the treaty but I am hard pressed to see any evidence that Lawrence was a traitor. There are many other numerous explanations about how and when Faisal first found out about the treaty. If Lawrence was in fact a traitor I would have thought the French at the very least would have pressed the point with their British allies. I don't believe any other biographer has made a point of this issue. Anderson then even ends his book in the Epilogue by saying, "Everything T.E. Lawrence had fought for, schemed for, arguably betrayed his country for, turned to ashes....." This is a heavy handed indictment. The interesting thing about Lawrence is that many things about him are elusive and will always remain a matter of conjecture. But I for one feel Anderson has gone over the top on this claim. (Much the way prior biographers have made the point that Lawrence was a homosexual. No one will really know for sure but then does it matter.)Lastly, I take exception to Anderson's brief depiction of Lawrence in the Epilogue diagnosing Lawrence as having had Post-traumatic stress disorder. Anderson further says, " ...it is hard to escape the image of a sad and reclusive man, his circle of friends and acquaintances steadily dwindling to a mere handful...".No doubt Lawrence had a unique and difficult personality to understand. How many Britain's would turn away from being knighted by their King during the actual ceremony? None before Lawrence. John Mack in his Pulitzer Prize winning book, THE PRINCE OF OUR DISORDER: The Life of T.E. Lawrence (1976) devoted a whole book to doing a psychological study of Lawrence (One of the best books on Lawrence). In Michael Korda's recent book, HERO: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia (2010) Korda paints a more convincing picture than PTSD where Lawrence having sought fame, having become a celebrity as big as say Diana today, found he did not like living with fame. Rather than leverage his fame like most people would be expected to do Lawrence hid from it. I always thought the fact that he grew up keeping the secret that he was illegitimate in class contentious Britain that he was a pretender. The work Lawrence did after the war was never going to be heroic...the stuff of headlines.... But he was an intellectual who wrote two books and translated others. The letters he wrote were long and interesting and send to a wide circle of acquaintances yielding who collections of text. Yes, Lawrence was not like the rest of us... and that is why his legend, myth and enigma endure.In Anderson's Acknowledgments at the end of his book Anderson gives high recognition to Jeremy Wilson whose authorized biography, LAWRENCE OF ARABIA (1990) and says, "While I respectfully disagree with Mr. Wilson on several aspects of Lawrence's actions in Arabia. I am deeply indebted to the astounding amount of scholarly research he has done on Lawrence......" If you're a fan of all things Lawrence you no doubt know that Jeremy Wilson and his wife Nichole own Castle Hill Press. They have been publishing fine collector quality books by Lawrence for some twenty years. I own several of these the two most recent being THE MINT and BOATS FOR THE RAF 1929 - 1935. I recommend the Wilson's work to you as well as Wilson's T.E. Lawrence Studies page on internet. (Here he also does a good power point presentation covering the historical accuracy of the movie.)For those who like and collect things Lawrence I want to also mention a book I found very well published and presented. It is in part what one might term a small coffee table book. It is Joseph Berton's T.E. LAWRENCE AND THE ARAB REVOLT (2011.Lawrence is now but a drifting bit of sand blowing across the landscape of a land and people he loved that today is fractured by human intolerance. He became the medieval knight he dreamed of becoming. And I think that is what drew my Father to Lawrence.
This book is a very worthy attempt to endow a much-told tale with a contemporary perspective. The history of T.E Lawrence as Lawrence of Arabia is well known, and Anderson tries to tell story of the “man behind the mythâ€, with much emphasis on his family life, and early interests in mediaeval history and archeology. He traces the development of Lawrence’s growing involvement with the cause of Arab self-determination – initially as part of the British war effort against the Ottoman Turks, and increasingly motivated by his empathy with the Arabs and their cause – to the extent that he often defied orders from his superior officers and took actions that were not necessarily in the best interests of Britain’s strategic objectives. He tries to analyze the motivations for many of the more troubling (to contemporary sensibilities) actions or incidents during Lawrence’s time in Arabia , and picks apart the various accounts of them - often contradictory - in Lawrence’s own writings and in those of others that knew him. The author seems intent on establishing a consistent and objective “truth†about Lawrence’s nature, which may not recoverable.The book is much larger than just the story of Lawrence, because Anderson deliberately sets out to create an epic narrative. He introduces three other characters, whose lives and activities during the war years are recounted alongside those of Lawrence. They are William Yale, a young American oil man who almost serendipitously became the then rather amateurish US State Department’s expert on the Middle East; Curt Prufer, a German intelligence operative, and Aaron Aarohnson, the Jewish/Palestinian agronomist who formed the NILI spy ring in Palestine working on behalf of the British. Following extensive background on each of these three, the author uses the standard epic novel technique of interspersing contemporary narratives of the activities of each of them with those of Lawrence. Much of it is interesting; for example, the very detailed account of Aaron Aarohnson’s trials and tribulations in attempting to get the British to take his spy ring seriously, or his involvement in the Zionist movement. But overall, much of it is just filler; Lawrence was a “mover and shaker†who influenced events on a massive scale; the other three are minor characters, for the most part observers who had little or no influence in shaping either the war efforts or strategic outcomes of their respective nations. The account of Lawrence in Arabia gains nothing – other than length – from this treatment.This is clearly a book written by a journalist, rather than a historian – not because of any deficiency in the author’s research – but because it takes a very moralistic contemporary point of view of British and French imperialistic policies, how the war was mismanaged with a reckless disregard for life, and how the peace was so badly compromised. This is with the benefit of 90 years’ hindsight and the sensibilities of a contemporary liberal outlook , although a clearer understanding of past events is usually better seen from the perspective of their participants.One gets the impression that the wartime Anglo-French jockeying for control of large parts of the soon to be ex-Ottoman empire is the whim of individual English and French players, rather than a strategic rivalry between these so-called allies. James Barr’s “A Line in the Sand†does a better job of this, because it follows the rivalry through the next 30 years after WW1. Anderson of course is concerned primarily with Lawrence, so his book ends with Lawrence’s exit from the scene, and subsequent events are only covered very briefly in the epilogue. “A Line in the Sand†is no less replete with interesting characters than “Lawrence in Arabiaâ€; but the difference is that in the former, the characters subserve the narrative, rather than the other way around.If you are interested in reading an in-depth analysis of T.E Lawrence, then this book will give you that – but you will also have to learn almost as much about Yale, Aarohnson and Prufer. If you are looking to understand, as the cover blurb says “… the making of the modern middle eastâ€, there are more complete and less judgmental accounts to be read.
As more than a thousand people have already noted, this is a good book. It is not some dusty historical account. Although Scott Anderson seems to suggest he is a historian in his opening notes, he is not. This is an entertaining treatment of the WWI Middle East theater, written by an accomplished journalist and novelist. It is not entirely about Lawrence, the would be archaeologist and insurgent, either. Three other main characters are added to tell the story from a variety of angles.There is an American Standard Oil man turned spy, a German language professor become intelligence officer, and a Zionist agronomist working as a double agent against the Ottoman Empire. All four unlikely persons become increasingly intertwined in the conflicts between British, Turkish, German and Arab regional interests. There is also a well developed supporting cast of the requisite military men and period politicians who need to be to be introduced along the way.The plots and subplots are woven together in a writerly manner. At times you can almost forget that you are reading about actual events. The opposing factions are layed out clearly, and are easily understood. Anderson is witty, if somewhat glib in his portrayal of the actions and intentions of the players. Should I have a complaint, it would be that the book is too entertaining in a facile way. It reads like a screenplay; when will the movie be out? Oh right, it's already been done.
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