He comes across as a man of virtue and spirit, uniquely suited to understanding and appreciating the beauty and complexity of the Arab guerrilla campaign. His writing demands that one ask whether literature or history or sociology might best value the blood-soaked fruits of his battles in the desert. Lawrence's penchant for introspection and abstract formulation move the book beyond a mere catalog of facts. 'And at once, I knew how much I was sorry.' Lawrence finds that the city's abrupt capture 'disclosed the exhaustion of my main springs of action.' He resigns his post. In a few short years, the British and their Arab allies annihilate the Turks and seize the great city of Damascus. He struggles with incompatible allegiances to both the British Army and the Arab nationalism. He couples that energy with a British school boy's sense of decency and a mastery of Arab mores, particularly those pertaining to power politics. Lawrence lives in the world with an exciting, irreligious energy. He assassinates wayward followers, glories in combat, and waxes philosophic as to the futility of mercy. Lawrence helps the Arab chiefs create and channel a painful, violent, and masochistic campaign of guerrilla warfare. To rally the disparate Arab tribes, he preaches a message of absolute liberation and glory, wherein the Arabs might reestablish their dominance in the Middle East, and expunge the light of foreign influence. He then rides into the desert, ostensibly under British direction, to encourage the Arabs to aggressively fight the Turks, and create a diversion from the main efforts of the British regular army. Lawrence, a young archaeologist familiar with Arab-Islamic culture, quietly enters the British army at the outbreak of the First World War.

He opens his tale with a clear understanding of context, and a sly smile as to the uncanny nature of the story about to unfold. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a memoir of the 1916-1918 Arab Revolt that took place during the First World War. So they allowed it to begin.' And so also begins T. Their knowledge of the nature and power and country of the Arabic-speaking peoples made them think that the issue of such a rebellion would be happy: and indicated its character and method. believed that a rebellion of Arabs against Turks would enable England, while fighting Germany, simultaneously to defeat Turkey. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, Doubleday, 1938.

Seven pillars of wisdom book