Is "modern Middle East" an oxymoron?
A reader recommended this book. I found it on the new book shelf at the public library in South Lake, Texas. I won't get around to reading it for awhile.
It appears the author is a contemporary American writer.
Introduction
The book starts with the two pages surrounding the event in which 30-year-old T. E. Lawrence was to be knighted - an incredible beginning.
PART I
Chapter 1: Playboys in the Holy Land
Starts with the coincidental meeting in 1914 between two Americans, William Yale and Rudolf McGovern, agents of the Standard Oil Company of New York, and three Brits, including T. E. Lawrence in British Army uniform, in Syria.
Chapter 2: A Very Unusual Type
Flashback to early days about the two Americans and T. E. Lawrence. This chapter convinces me I need to buy the book for my own library; I am reading it in the South Lake, Texas, public library.
Chapter 3: Another And Another Nice Thing
1913: T. E. Lawrence as an archaeologist. Yale in Anatolia.
Chapter 4: To The Last Million
1914: warning signs of new weapons of war had been missed by the Brits
Chapter 5: A Despicable Mess
1915: T. E. Lawrence officially in the Mideast.
Chapter 6: The Keepers of Secrets
1915: continuation of same.
Chapter 7: Treachery
Story of the Brit, Sykes.
Turkey needs lubricating oil for its army.
PART II
Chapter 8: The Battle Joined
October, 1916: Ronald Storrs and T. E. Lawrence to Egypt.
Chapter 9: The Man Who Would Be Kingmaker
October, 1916: to Yenbo.
The chapter ends with T. E. Lawrence to be sent back to Arabia as a temporary liaison officer to Faisal ibn Hussein.
Chapter 10: Neatly In The Void
November, 1916.
March on Wejh.
Chapter 11: A Mist Of Deceits
January, 1917.
Yale, Woodrow Wilson.
Chapter 12: An Audacious Scheme
April, 1917.
The background to Aqaba. The chapter ends, "It was with such thoughts that, two days later, Lawrence set out on the long and dangerous trek toward Aqaba. For what would soon become one of the most audacious and celebrated military exploits of World War I, his accompanying "army" consisted of fewer than forty-five Arab warriors."
Chapter 13: Aqaba
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