A review by harry_reads4fun
Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson

4.0

"The desert landscape rendered my mind vacant with its superfluous greatness, a greatness achieved not by the addition of thought to its emptiness, but by its subtraction." In stark contrast to Lawrence's description of the desert, Anderson's book fills that vacant canvas with characters, schemes, facts, political maneuvering, dates and battles. Maybe too many? Sometimes the result is plodding and other times the story lines intersect beautifully to drive the plot forward. The inclusion of research and context from Lawrence's "peers" were, at the same time, both interesting and occasionally too divergent. All in all, extremely interesting content and a beautifully written, if dense, read.