Customer Reviews

Sterling Point Books: Lawrence of Arabia

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is intended for youth and is very well written and interesting. It is a reprint of Alstair Maclean's 1962 book, All About Lawrence of Arabia. I think many people have forgotten Alstair Maclean who was a best selling author in the manner of Tom Clancy in the 60s and 70s. He was very popular and wrote thrillers. Because of the interest of Lawrence of Arabia when the movie came out, he wrote this book for youth and adults alike. The writing style is a bit different than most writers write today but that is not a bad thing, in fact it is refreshing. Maclean covers the important incidents in Lawrence's life during his time in Arabia and how he was able to drive the Arabs to defeat the Turks and make a powerful claim to self governance at a time when Britain and France were planning to divvy up the spoils themselves. Shame on them! Lawrence is a hero for everyone and did the right thing when he could have easily led the Arabs from one colonizer to another. Great book.

I bought this book for my ten year old son who is currently devouring all things military. As a student of history and a parent, I appreciated that the author skipped over some details of Lawrence's career and instead focused on the adventure. A good introduction to a fascinating character and time period without the details that make parents shudder. Highly recommended!

When I purchased the book I did not not notice there was a tag that said children's book (actually it was young readers). I guess that is why the text was big. It was straight narrative, with no character or plot development like the novels I'm used to. It was kind of like reading a newspaper article about Lawrence of Arabia. This is such a great subject and story, to bad I chose this book. On the positive side it might be the perfect book for a beginning reader, because it is not lengthy.