[sufue]

Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson is on sale today for $2.99 in the US. I read this a while back, mostly prompted by the lyrics to Al Stewart's League of Notions (not a typo, since Stewart loves puns), and really enjoyed it, while also learning a lot, which is kind of nice. It has picked up a bunch of awards including a Goodreads Choice Award, NPR Best Book of the Year, and New York Times Notable Book award. And it was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography.

Kindle US: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BH0VSPI
Kobo US: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/lawrence-in-arabia

Link to lyrics for League of Notions (hard to find a site without too many ads, but this one's not too bad): https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/alst...ofnotions.html, or you can go to Stewart's website (www.alstewart.com), and find the lyrics under the Songs tab, but you have to give him your email....

Spoiler:

The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War I was, in the words of T. E. Lawrence, “a sideshow of a sideshow.” As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far removed from the corridors of power.

At the center of it all was Lawrence himself. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in Syria; by 1917 he was riding into legend at the head of an Arab army as he fought a rearguard action against his own government and its imperial ambitions. Based on four years of intensive primary document research, Lawrence in Arabia definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed.