Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations [Paperback]

Georgina Howell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2008

A marvelous tale of an adventurous life of great historical import

 

She has been called the female Lawrence of Arabia, which, while not inaccurate, fails to give Gertrude Bell her due. She was at one time the most powerful woman in the British Empire: a nation builder, the driving force behind the creation of modern-day Iraq. Born in 1868 into a world of privilege, Bell turned her back on Victorian society, choosing to read history at Oxford and going on to become an archaeologist, spy, Arabist, linguist, author (of Persian Pictures, The Desert and the Sown, and many other collections), poet, photographer, and legendary mountaineer (she took off her skirt and climbed the Alps in her underclothes).

She traveled the globe several times, but her passion was the desert, where she traveled with only her guns and her servants. Her vast knowledge of the region made her indispensable to the Cairo Intelligence Office of the British government during World War I. She advised the Viceroy of India; then, as an army major, she traveled to the front lines in Mesopotamia. There, she supported the creation of an autonomous Arab nation for Iraq, promoting and manipulating the election of King Faisal to the throne and helping to draw the borders of the fledgling state. Gertrude Bell, vividly told and impeccably researched by Georgina Howell, is a richly compelling portrait of a woman who transcended the restrictions of her class and times, and in so doing, created a remarkable and enduring legacy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this hefty, thoroughly enjoyable biography of Gertrude Bell (1868–1926), English journalist Howell describes her subject as not only "the most famous British traveler of her day, male or female" but as a "poet, scholar, historian, mountaineer, photographer, archaeologist, gardener, cartographer, linguist and distinguished servant of the state." As Howell observes, "Gertrude always had to have a project," and she manages to bring those multitudinous projects, studies and adventures to life on the page. "I decided," Howell writes, "to use many more of her own words than would appear in a conventional biography": a felicitous decision when the subject's letters, diaries and publications are as seamlessly incorporated in Howell's engaging text as they are. Bell's role in the creation of Iraq and the placement of Faisal upon the throne, is fully detailed, both to honor her power and to haunt us today. But the strength and delight of Howell's superb biography is in the fullness with which Bell's character is drawn. Having clearly fallen in love with her subject (though not blind to her warts), Howell leaves no stone unturned—family history, school days, Bell's clothes, sometimes her meals, her friendships, her servants, her thousands of miles traveled, her fluency in languages (Persian, Turkish, Arabic) and, yes, her romances. 16 pages of b&w illus. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The breadth and depth of Gertrude Bell's accomplishments are extraordinary. Born to British industrial wealth and civic prominence during the Victorian era, she possessed boundless self-confidence, courage, and vitality. The first woman to earn top honors in history at Oxford, Bell was fluent in six languages, and became an intrepid traveler and celebrated mountaineer. Tragically unlucky in love, she romanced the world instead. Discovering her spiritual home in the Middle East, Bell transformed herself into a cartographer, archaeologist, writer, and photographer as she undertook perilous journeys to fabled desert outposts, commanding the respect of powerful Bedouin sheikhs. During World War I, Bell became the expert on Mesopotamia for British military intelligence, and a more crucial force in the forming of modern Iraq than that of her friend, T. E. Lawrence. From Cairo to Basra to Baghdad, Bell, against fierce adversity, devoted herself to justice. Howell writes with all the verve, historical veracity, and acumen her intoxicating subject demands--her spectacular biography leaves the reader lost in admiration and steeped in sorrow. It seems that all the profound knowledge about the culture of the desert Bell placed herself in jeopardy to gather was promptly forgotten. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 512 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (April 29, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374531358
• ISBN-13: 978-0374531355
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #94,921 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, Solidly Researched Biography, April 29, 2007

By 

Judith Wilson (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations (First American Edition) (Hardcover)

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.

53 of 60 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timely Ttreatment of Perennially Fascinating Person, April 30, 2007

By 

Molly Baker (Dayton, OH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations (First American Edition) (Hardcover)

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.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brava Bell! Brava Howell!!!, June 4, 2007

By 

Cicero "history academic" (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations (First American Edition) (Hardcover)

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!