Lawrence: The Uncrowned King of Arabia [Hardcover]

Michael Asher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1999

A major new biography that provides readers with the first nuanced portrait of one of this century's most daring and enigmatic adventurers.

T. E. Lawrence began his role in World War I as a map clerk and ended it as one of the greatest military heroes of the century. He altered the face of the Middle East, helped the Arabs gain their freedom, and formulated many of the precepts of modern guerrilla warfare. But he refused any honors and spent the rest of his life in near obscurity.

A brilliant propagandist, rhetorician, and manipulator, Lawrence deliberately turned his life into a conundrum, thereby assuring his place as a mythical cult-figure for posterity. But who was the real man behind the masks? Desert explorer and Arab scholar Michael Asher set out to solve this riddle of appearances. The result--a biography combining the techniques of the detective story, travelogue, epic history, and high drama--clears away some of the false trails and captures the authentic atmosphere of the Arab Revolt.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Thomas Edward Lawrence was born illegitimate in 1888, "the son of unmarried parents who had vanished from one life to recreate themselves in another." (His father left four daughters, a marriage, and a hefty inheritance in Dublin to start a new life in England with the woman who'd been his children's governess.) Lawrence matured into an elusive man whose shifting personas baffled admirers and detractors alike. Explorer and Arabian scholar Michael Asher, himself familiar with the desert lands in which Lawrence made his military reputation during the First World War, accepts him as a complex bundle of contradictions. The story of this romantic Englishman's involvement in the Arab revolt against Turkey is, as always, a gripping physical, political, and spiritual adventure, and Asher retells it well. The book's most noteworthy achievement, however, is the balanced assessment of Lawrence as "a real man with a real blend of strengths and weaknesses ... whose inner lack of strong identity allowed him to be anything and anyone he felt others needed him to be." Biography purists may be put off by Asher's first-person intrusions into the narrative (frequently to retrace Lawrence's most famous journeys or to consider the veracity of incidents Lawrence described in Seven Pillars of Wisdom), but they serve to anchor a near-mythic existence in the geographic realities of the region he loved. --Wendy Smith

From Publishers Weekly

As an explorer and Arabist, Asher (Two Against the Sahara) is well equipped to add an interesting psychological dimension to the figure of T.E. Lawrence (1888-1935). Asher personally retraces the footsteps of Lawrence, as recounted in his classic Seven Pillars of Wisdom, and in doing so takes the reader on an intimate journey into the mind and motivations of the popularly proclaimed father of "Arab independence." A bookish youth whose reading led him to view "the East as a parallel world, a dimension to which, in future, he might find the chance to escape," Lawrence fled his Victorian upbringing and an overbearing mother by joining, first, an archeological team and, later, the army intelligence service. Asher's Lawrence is a flawed man thrust by events into the forefront of history. Asher recounts Lawrence's exploits in the Arab Revolt in a fast-paced narrative style more suitable to many modern readers than Lawrence's original classic. Lawrence's subsequent disillusionment with the shortsighted view taken of the Middle East by Britain is not as important to Asher's story as the tortured paths of the explorer's soul. The book presents an excellent analysis of the personal demons that plagued Lawrence throughout his life, his revulsion over the horrors of war and the torment of reconciling his strict religious upbringing with his homosexuality. Asher points out several discrepancies in Lawrence's original narrative, noting Lawrence's self-proclaimed "aptitude for deceit," and weighing those inventions against the overall brilliance of the man and his work. Asher won't quite succeed in erasing the image of Peter O'Toole from readers' minds, but he adeptly ties the compelling figure of Lawrence to the political upheavals of the Arab world. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Overlook Hardcover (September 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0879517123
• ISBN-13: 978-0879517120
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,809,222 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Lawrence deserves much better, February 17, 2003

By 

D. Wolf "wolfd" (Fairfax, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lawrence: The Uncrowned King of Arabia (Hardcover)

This book fails in many ways. The reason it gets 2 stars instead of one is that it's hard to discuss Lawrence without some fascinating things coming through.

First, Asher makes himelf part of the biography. He discusses his own personal travels in a manner that add absolutely nothing to the reader's understanding. The final paragraph of the book begins with "I." Further, the frequency and manner in which he interjects himself in the book is highly annoying.

Second, there are numerous factual problems with the book. At one point Asher refers to Turks shooting their rifles at Bedu who are over two miles away. Even a trained sniper with modern equipment wouldn't take that shot. Further, his description of Lt. Junor's plane crash is at odds with other accounts. Asher says the plane erupted in flames even though there are published photos of the crashed plane that show otherwise. Lastly on this point, Asher doesn't use Tunbridge's writings on Lawrence's days in the RAF as reference material. It's a surprising omission.

Third, as other reviewers noted, Asher writes extensively about Lawrence's psyche. This would be sensible if Asher was either trained in psychology or referenced studies by those who are; unfortunately, neither is the case. Instead there are a few bibliographical references to works on psychology, but none specific to Lawrence. Asher's vehement discussion of Lawrence's mother makes the reader wonder whether the author or the subject had the greater maternal relationship issues.

Fourth, is Asher's style, or more accurately, styles. At times he uses the contemporary jargon of British soldiers, whereas at other points he writes in a very stilted manner adding unnecessary Latin phrases to the text. His best writing is when he's providing background or contextual material such as the discussion of British military actions elsewhere in WWI.

Lawrence was one of the most fascinating personalities of the 20th century. He deserves a much better biography.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Don't judge this book by its cover, September 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Lawrence: The Uncrowned King of Arabia (Hardcover)

I must say, I was quite disappointed by this book. There's way too much psychoanalysis and far too little historical info. Personally, I'm not interested in Mr. Asher's lay-psychology. I read the book hoping to find detailed biographical and historical info. What I got instead was a poorly written psychological analysis written by an amateur.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Psychological Study of TE Lawrence, January 3, 2000

By 

Laura Vocelle (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Lawrence: The Uncrowned King of Arabia (Hardcover)

This book is most certainly an easy read. Asher whets your appetite by giving a different perspective from other Lawrence biographies. He follows in Lawrence's footsteps to historically significant spots and gives an eyewitness account of varing desert terrains with a pleasant nostalgia. However, instead of pursuing that route he turns to psychological interpretations of Lawrence's personality that are not supported, but merely purported. Overall this is not a definitive biography of Lawrence.