Book review: 'Lawrence in Arabia' by Scott Anderson

“Lawrence in Arabia” by Scott Anderson, 2013, is a fascinating, educational and informative history of the Middle East subtitled: “War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the making of the modern Middle East.”

Mr. Anderson has an impressive background as a war correspondent, who has reported from Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Sudan, Bosnia, El Salvador and Chechnya. He writes without rancor or political leaning. He has been printed in New York Times Magazine, Harpers, Vanity Fair and Esquire to name just a few.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who would like to educate themselves about the last 125 years of the Middle East’s history, and get a better understanding of European “Imperialism” and the ages-old mindset of our “Great-Great-Grandfathers.”

World War I and the backdrop for World War II, and Hitler’s Nazi Germany, can better be understood by studying this reliably researched book.

If you have ever seen the 1962 produced Hollywood movie, “Lawrence of Arabia” and enjoyed it, yet were revolted by the story it tells, this work will both make that story become real history, with the facts being revealed through letters, official reports, and diaries, while giving you full-color imagery in your mind, as you become educated as to some of the factors that have brought our world to where it is today concerning the multitude of Arab factions, Wahabists, everyday Muslims, Islam, Israel, Jews, Zionists, Palestine, Palestinians, France, Briton, Germany, and the USA.

Reading it will not make you an expert. You’ll just understand much better the world we live in today, with the real and present threat of Islamic Jihad across nearly every continent

of our globe.

I was struck with the precision of language used by our forbears in their correspondence with one another. Their vivid word pictures, their ability to obfuscate, with the same flowery language, every bit as maddeningly as today’s most adroit politicians.

I’d like to share with you two quotes from this book that galvanized my thoughts concerning where we are as a nation today, and our world’s populace just beginning the new year of 2016.

I wonder...? Does anyone on either side of the political spectrum in this nation or anywhere else ever read or think of these lessons from history?

You decide... [William Yale, American State Department Special Agent in Palestine, 1918.]

“...Events are determined not at peace conferences, but by actions during hostilities proceeding the peacemaking process... The, ‘deus ex machina’ of international affairs is not he who waits to act at some dramatic crisis, but he who consistently acts in ways which are determining the course of events.”

Now consider what we are witnessing ISIS, [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria] and/or (ISIL) [Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] doing nearly every day...

“It is one thing to conduct hit and run raids against the enemy, and quite another to take population centers and hold them to ones side. While modern insurgency and counterinsurgency experts have coined a term for the process, “hearts and minds”...the bare truth is there are no hearts and minds to be won.

“Instead the essential focus of civilians caught in a guerrilla war zone is simply to stay alive.

“They will cast their lot with whichever side best ensures (staying alive)...until that side doesn’t anymore...at which point the civilians will move to the other side.

“In this most primal of contests, appeals to state nationalism or religious ideology are next to worthless. Allegiance is won by providing security or...instilling terror... or... through some combination of the two...” Author Scott Anderson, “Lawrence in Arabia”...

All knowledge is not harvested from websites with ideological-political points to prove. Handwritten letters from our forefathers contain a wealth of wisdom.

Jon Keith is a Coeur d’Alene resident.