Customer Reviews

Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations (First American Edition)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Gertrude Bell is someone I've come across many times -- in everything from scholarly to not-so-scholarly history books to the writings of Vita Sackville-West -- but until I picked up Georgina Howell's richly detailed and expertly written book, the woman I had glimpsed over the years merely suggested a wealthy Victorian woman (which Bell was) known more for her eccentricity than actual wit (not remotely the case).

Intellectually brilliant (fluent in 6 languages, including Arabic and Persian, and was the first woman to take a "first" at Oxford in Modern History), supremely courageous, wise and very human, I have been delighted and honored to at last sit down with Gertrude Bell and over the course of 300+ pages, make her acquaintance. In Howell's capable hands, Bell comes quickly and fully to life, holding my attention and demanding my admiration.

A somewhat unexpected bonus have been the extraordinary (and harrowing) tales of Bell's journeys across the Bedouin deserts in the years before the first world war. I've come away from these accounts (with their accompanying photographs, courtesy of Bell, who in addition to her other gifts was an accomplished photographer) with a more profound understanding of the middle-eastern world that we encounter today.

I recommend this book without reservation to anyone with an interest in middle-eastern history, Victorian women, early 20th century achievements in mountain climbing, Victorian history -- and more. It's all there. It's a great book, about an extraordinary life. And it should be required reading for anyone who imagines himself or herself to be knowledgeable about the middle-east, or who wants to know more. Unlike so many "mid-east experts" Bell truly was an expert, with knowledge born of a great passion for that world, served by a magnificient wisdom and intelligence.

Current events in star crossed Iraq have brought out a renewed interest in Gertrude Bell (GLB). Much of it seems political, concerned with pointing fingers at "causes" for the current situation as arising out of the World War One aftermath. As is typical of today's shallow, axe-grinding treatment of history, most of what I see being described as Miss Bell's role at that time is overly generalized, if not downright misleading. Many absorbing biographies on GLB have been published. This one, esp. in the "Government By Gertrude" chapter," does a very nice job of showing the devil in the details of how King Faisal, his small staff, and English advisors pulled off something (i.e., guiding Iraq from a leadership mish mash to becoming an independent state) that moderns are still in a quandry as to how it may be done ... again. Keeping the cradle of civilization peaceful and prosperous, in spite of pressures from war lords and religious gangsters fighting over hegemony, and other nations wanting to plunder its resources, may always be a problem, and that is visible in this presentation as you see financial depression and ill health cutting drastically short the time Faisal, and Gertrude (herself the last of the British advisors to care that the Iraqi's got a fair deal out of the breakup of the Ottoman Empire) have to stabilize the milieu resulting from the 1919 WW I Peace Treaty settlements. Also, a vivid description of GLB's climbing adventures is given in this book so that what seems unbelievable for its time becomes undeniably substantiated. In spite of there being great volumes of data available as source material for Gretrude Bell stories, there is still much that has not been explicated, and much that will always remain mysterious from the time when she was a "spy" associated with the Arab Bureau. New pictures and references to some contemporary accounts not widely revealed make this a worthwhile acquisition for a devotee of the study of Gertrude and the remarkable people of the late Victorian, Edwardian, and World War I periods in English history. It may not be long before what's published on Gertrude will catch up with what's been done for her Arab Bureau cohort, T. E. Lawrence. I do have a big question, however, about a footnote at the bottom of page 373 that indicates a source as "Ronald Bodley, a descendant of Gertrude's ..." Hmmm. The word "descendant" usually implies relationship denoting a blood offspring. Gertrude was supposedly a "spinster" and without issue. Should the term "relative" be more aptly used in this case, or does the author have something more compelling to reveal?! Finally, I wish book editors would be more encouraging of authors to give some details, in epilogues for example, about the adventures they encountered while doing research for their subject; about all we have is what we see brought out on C-Cpan Book TV.

Brilliantly written, incisive, informative, judicious and fair, informed and insightful - the best of the best biographies that blend a personal story within the complexities of historical context. Bell is important to know for all the obvious reasons, and Howell gives her to us as a real, living individual, an extraordinary woman who molded her restrictive world into a limitless universe of meanng and opportunity. As a followup to Wallach's earlier Dessert Queen, this raises the telling of Bell's life and times to sublime and memorable heights. It has a permanent place in my library. Thank you Ms. Howell!

Georgina Howell brings to life Gertrude Bell, a woman whose accomplishments deserve to be better known than they have been. Born into the sixth-richest family in Britain in 1868, Bell got an education equal to that of a man. Young Bell was a "social hand grenade" due to her extraordinary self-confidence and intellectual brilliance. Bell did not get along well with the less developed personalities and intellects around her.

Despite her efforts to get married and have a family of her own, Bell never managed to find true happiness. As Howell clearly demonstrates through her book, Bell never fully recovered from the premature death of Henry Cadogan, with whom she fell in love in 1892. Bell fluctuated all her life between looking for personal fulfillment and devoting herself to the well-being of the community for no reward.

Despite these repeated setbacks in her private life, Bell would emerge as one of the most important architects of the modern Middle East. Bell first discovered the region when she traveled to Persia (modern Iran) in 1892. Bell's obsession with archeology became the driver behind her desert expeditions before WWI. Bell published different books about her archeological findings and learned to speak Arabic on top of five other languages during that period.

The knowledge that Bell got about the Middle East and its people proved invaluable when Britain fought the Turks in the region during the Great War. The same knowledge played a decisive roll in leading the Arabs to nationhood in the aftermath of WWI. Unsurprisingly, Bell has been compared to T.E. Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia, who launched the Arab Revolt. Unlike Lawrence, Bell remained dedicated to the cause of Arabs until they played a leading role in countries such as Transjordan (modern Jordan) and Iraq. Thanks to Bell's managerial skills, Iraq emerged as a working Sunni-dominated polity under the leadership of King Faisal by the time of her suicide in Baghdad in 1926.

Most importantly, Howell gives contemporary readers some valuable insights into modern Iraq that I had the privilege to discover long before the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The chapter "Government through Gertrude" is probably the most fascinating and also the most relevant of all in fixing a broken Iraq. Bell was someone that every prominent man in Iraq, regardless of races, creeds, and allegiances, could trust. Bell kept her word and was fearless in trusting her life to these prominent men when traveling alone in their lands. Bell not only won trust for the British administration, but also worked on improving relationships between the different races, creeds, and allegiances. Unsurprisingly, Bell was greeted as "Khatun," i.e., desert queen, or "Umm al Muminin," i.e., Mother of the Faithful, after Ayishah, the wife of Prophet Muhammad.

This book is among the top 5 biographies I have ever read (yes, I do read a lot!). The descriptions of Miss Bell's travels thru the desert and her interactions with the sheiks are especially well written; at times I actually felt I was there. I would also recommend this book to anyone interested in the history of Iraq. The different cultures and ethnic groups in this part of the world have not changed for centuries. Finally, I would recommend this book to folks interested in the struggles of women working to make their place in a man's world. There are many excellent stories about Miss Bell efforts to make the British military listen to her excellent advice. Thank you, Georgina Howell for a wonderful book.

Georgina Howell has written a magnificent biography of a magnificent spirit, Gertrude Bell--famed mountain climber, archeologist, traveller, author, translator, diarist, and a contributor to the establishment of the Iraq state. Bell was a formidable personality with sharp intelligence and fantastic amounts of energy. She lived most of her life in the Middle East, becoming fluent in Arabic and acquainting herself with all the important sheikhs and tribes of the region. She was so assimilated into the culture of the area that King Faisal told her she could not speak of returning home when she went to England, that Baghdad was her true home.

Bell was a lifelong atheist and when her energy was depleted and illness kept her from an active life, she committed suicide at the age of 57. She had worked herself near to death in the cause of Iraqi independence.
This record of her life and work is a stunning achievement--first rate all the way. What a woman! What a book!

Gertrude Bell was an amazing woman. This book is ponderous. The style is flat, the author's point of view uncritical. It reads like a boring history book. If she had done more research instead of just quoting letters and anecdotes from Gertrude's letters she could have fleshed Gertrude out and made her 3 dimensional. There are other authors that have done justice to Gertrude and made her come alive for us to admire.
This book leaves you feeling like you know alot of facts about Gertrude but nothing about the woman she was.

Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations

By Georgina Howell
Reviewed by Philip Henry

First, there was T.E. Lawrence: charismatic, mysterious, sexually ambivalent, and photogenic. His immersion in Arab culture is well known. But no one knows much about the accomplished individualist Gertrude Bell. Well- traveled and well-connected, she was the first woman to obtain a "First" in Modern History at Oxford; climbed the Alps; crossed the Desert on camel caravans; was the confidante of British and Arab ministers and Kings and drafted the political outline of modern day Iraq.
(As if that weren't enough, she was a linguist, archaeologist, and journalist)

Curiously, in all I've read and heard about Iraq, there has been little if anything said about the role of Victorian and Edwardian Britain in the creation of the Middle East. Certainly, Britain was "Present at the Creation" of modern Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Syria. Winston Churchill served as Colonial Secretary beginning in the 1920's, and enlisted Bell (who had been instrumental in British Intelligence in WW I) to help formulate British policy toward Iraq, then Mesopotamia or, "Between the Rivers."
The First World War ended in an Armistice with little or no resolution of the underlying disputes, and the former Ottoman Empire became ripe for foreign occupation. Britain became the De Facto ruler of Iraq for thirty years: exercising a benevolent mandate and setting the stage for the events that have followed.

Although politically active, Gertrude Bell remained a scholar at heart, and her interest in archaeology resulted in the creation of the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad much of which has been looted in the wars that have followed.

Bell's personal life was complex: she never married, apparently never recovering from the death at Gallipoli of a young man with whom she had fallen in love. She was deeply affected by World War One. As a volunteer secretary in charge of answering inquiries from families of missing soldiers, she answered each letter individually. In her letters, she lamented the loss of an entire generation of young British Officers and men: "four thousand men over control of a trench") She was found dead in a hotel room in 1926, an apparent suicide at age 57. Bell left voluminous notes, diaries and letters, many of which have been incorporated by Georgina Howell into this excellent biography. In a prescient letter to her mother in 1920, she wrote:

"But what I do feel pretty sure of is that if we leave this country to go to the dogs it will mean that we shall have to reconsider our whole position in Asia. If Mesopotamia (Iraq) goes Persia (Iran) goes inevitably, and then India. And the place which we leave empty will be occupied by seven devils a good deal worse than any which existed before we came. With these few words I remain your affectionate daughter, Gertrude "

-- 30 --

Gertrude Bell was certainly a very interesting woman but I had a miserable time wading thru the book. Chapters being separated by type of interest rather than chronology was not helpful. Within the chapters, chronology and logic were also missing. In the chapter on her desert travel we are told that she was a "woman traveling alone" and in the next paragraph the list of her large entourage was provided. She certainly was the only woman but certainly not alone.

When Gertrude was in Paris at the Peace Conference after WWI, I was taken aback to have to return to a battle in WWI for no apparent reason, then back to the conference.

In a book of 419 pages, exactly 9 were devoted to her strange death and the approach was unquestioning. One would think that a full and interesting chapter could have been devoted to the death and questions might have been raised and explored.

A very interesting subject, Gertrude, written poorly. I have to wonder if she published most of this as articles first and threw them together without the help of an editor.

This book is, unlike "Desert Queen", well researched, better edited and more importantly, well written. Georgina Howell brings us a superbly crafted work on the complex and truly remarkable life of Gertrude Bell. If you want to read only one book about Gertrude Bell this, in my opinion, is the best.