Lawrence: The Uncrowned King of Arabia

This book, first published in 1998, has been one of the best accounts I have read to date on 'Lawrence of Arabia'. For anyone looking for an easy to read but in-depth account of this amazing man then I think this book would be the one to read. In 380 pages Michael Asher takes you along on a journey of discovery with T.E. Lawrence and what a journey it is. The author re-traces many of Lawrence's desert journeys and presents the reader with a book that is part history, part travelogue and all drama! This book attempts to put to rest many of the myths and part-truths surrounding the career of T.E. Lawrence and does it well without going over-board. This book presents the man, warts and all and you come away from the book still amazed at what this man managed to accomplish in the desert during the Great War. The book offers many black & white photographs but also a number of nice colour photographs taken by the author whilst re-tracing Lawrence's journeys. This is a good book and well worth the time to pick up and read.

Having read a few books about T.E.Lawrence and his own tome I found Michael Asher's book easily the most enjoyable of the lot. Any man who took the time to physically visit the routes Lawrence (claims) to have made, has something to say. A very worthwhile book. Damien in Dublin Sands of Death: An Epic Tale of Massacre, Cannibalism, and Survival in the Sahara

michael asher in some ways retraces his steps following lawrences footsteps with his pursuit of the truths behind the bravo two zero sas patrol several years later.Lawrences story is revealed well, and Asher seems to maintain a balanced and truthful narative throughout.it is particulairly interesting when Asher trys to recreate and analyse some of lawrences greater exploits, as an ex sas trooper fluent in arabic and mounted on the back of a camel, he is fairly well suited to do so.overall a very good insight into an amazing man and his part in a huge and formative chunk in the formation of the modern middle east.UNsuprisingly its the politicians who come out looking like the real villians, whereas Lawrences reputation as hero comes out pretty strong

A contemporary of T.E. Lawrence summed up his personality as that of a woman who wears a veil but has one breast is visible. This, Asher argues, is the essence of the man - ostensibly shy and enigmatic, but underneath, an exhibitionist. Thus in private school, he distinguished himself by his remarkably strange diet, which intrigued and repelled his contemporaries. From childhood, Asher takes us on Lawrence's journeys from Oxford - where he was a star classicist - to pre-war France and Palestine, where he developed his interest in castle design. Thence to Syria as an archeologist, where many years were spent on a dig. Hardly typical background for a future intelligence agent and general, for which he became famous. Less famous, but in many respects most fascinating of all, are his post-war years in deliberate "obscurity," under pseudonym as an enlisted man in the British Air Force. Asher argues, convincingly, that his "retirement" into the ranks, ostensiblly a retreat from society, was a form of passive attention seeking - for nothing raised his public profile more than did these attempts at invisibility. No matter. His exploits, both military and personal, continue to fascinate.

Michael Asher has used his personal experience as a soldier, explorer and scholar to create a biography with an immediacy and richness of visceral detail rare in previous biographies. Lawrence time as an archaeologist at Carchemish is rendered at a level of detail and with insight totally absent from most previous works. And the story that emerges, with flashes of melodrama that wouldn't be out of place in an Indiana Jones movie, is as engaging as the best fiction. Jeremy Wilson, probably Lawrence's pre-eminent biographer currently, has documented a number of flaws and discrepencies in Asher's book. Nevertheless, the book is compelling and can serve as a useful entre to "Seven Pillars of Wisdom."