Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations

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!

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!

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.

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.