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Los Dibujos de Heriberto Juarez / The Drawings of Heriberto Juarez

by Paul Rich

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Que los dibujos sean de la vida en Mexico no es sorprendente porque Juarez esta con stante y a veces traviesamente poniendo arte en la vida y obteniendo arte de la vida. No piensa que el arte sea algo que se produzca solamente en un estudio, o para tal caso, que deba ser mantenido en un museo y visto los domingos. Toma un plato en la cena y traza un boceto en el. Ve un espacio cercano a un area esco lar de juegos y quiere hacer una escultura que lo ocupe para que los ninos puedan jugar en ella. De manera importante, sus bocetos en este libro reflejan, como lo hacen sus esculturas, no sólo su espontaneidad sino su habilidad para comprender intelectualmente y perpetuar la esencia de lo que ve. Los dibujos son tanto espontáneos como intelectuales, lo que no es poca cosa. Eso indudablemente es magia.

That the drawings here are from life in México is not surprising because Juárez is constantly, and at times impishly, putting art into life and getting art from life. He doesn’t think of art as some thing that is done just in a studio or for that matter kept in museums and looked at on Sundays. He seizes a plate at dinner and does a sketch on it. He sees a space next to school playground and wants a sculpture occupying it that the children can play upon. Importantly, his sketches in this book reflect, as do his sculptures, not only this spontaneity but his ability to intellectually grasp and perpetuate the essence of what he sees. The drawings are both spontaneous and intellectual, which is no mean feat. It is indeed magic.

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Invasions of the Gulf: Radicalism, Ritualism and the Shaikhs

by Paul Rich

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The Gulf was ruled for a good part of the 19th and 20th centuries from India, and those who served there constituted a unique, small foreign service of their own. Their public (private boarding in American usage) school backgrounds taught them to believe in elitism and snobbery, which they passed on to their sheikhs who became obsessed with their own positions, their wealth, and rituals surrounding their majlis and the pompous titles of Highness and regal monarchy.

As Dr. Rich asks, if the British had come from ordinary schools would they have thought less about elitism and more about providing good education for their charges? Would the sheikhs have paid for education instead of thoroughbred racehorses? Would they still have treated Indians as houseboys?

The Residents did not see any incongruity between their own privileged education, and the lack of attention they paid to often appalling local conditions. If accused of neglect, the colonial rulers could reply that without them the Arabs of the Gulf would have been even worse off.

Dr. Rich’s verdict on the years of British rule is far from favourable. His conclusion is that British achievements were decidedly modest, and that a legacy was left behind which combined the worst features of Indo-British and Arab tradition. The rulers of the Gulf need to take crash courses in history, pluralism and constitutionalism if they are to survive. If the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq had brought the Gulf to its senses, then some good might have come from it. Obviously not. Perhaps the world is reaping the results of British policy that left a system in the Gulf which could not adapt, burdened by frontiers which are now questioned. Stability accompanied by social inertia was what the century and a half of British rule provided.

 

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Getting the Third Degree: Fraternalism, Freemasonry and History

Editors: Guillermo De Los Reyes and Paul Rich

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Possibly the most international and diverse scholarly conference on fraternalism and freemasonry is the one held in Paris in the spring every two years at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France and hosted by Westphalia Press and the Policy Studies Organization. Scholars come from around the world, and the news they bring of discoveries is extraordinary. Prior to the conference itself there is a two day workshop on original documents, which meets at Musee de la Franc-Maconnerie. With growing debate over sustaining democracy in the face of alleged declining social capital, thanks to the time draining demands of social media and the epidemic of “couch potatoes,” the conferences have taken on great importance. As this engaging collection demonstrates, the doors being opened on the subject range from art history to political science to anthropology, as well as gender studies, sociology and more. The organizations discussed may insist on secrecy, but the research into them belies that. The editor, Dr. Guillermo De Los Reyes of the University of Houston, is president of the conference and no stranger to the field, having published many studies on fraternalism.

 

 

 

 

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The Arab of Mesopotamia

by Gertrude Bell, Introduction by Paul Rich

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One very determined woman incontestably held her own and more with the great figures of the Middle East in the early twentieth century. That was Gertrude Bell. Highly strung, petulant, aggressive, and gossipy, she occasionally provided tea but rarely sympathy to the extraordinary group of British imperial administrators whose adventures centered on Basra at the head of the Gulf in 1914–1916. Not enough has been made of the Barra cabal as a group rather than individuals. Nor have the machinations of the ‘Basra gang’ had the attention given to figures such as Lawrence of Arabia and General Allenby, individuals who when all is said and done were not deeply involved in Gulf and Iraqi affairs.

The Arab of Mesopotamia is a collection of once confidential briefing papers that Bell helped to produce for British army officers new to the Mesopotamian theater, published in Basra by a military printer. The tone confirms views that Gertrude Bell and her colleagues were interested in the possibility of playing on the world stage and wanted quiet in the shaikhdoms while they pursued notions of a Middle East empire that would rival the Indian empire. Heady plans were made for an Imperial service that would include Arabia, Iraq, the Trans-Jordan, and even the Sudan. While exiting, this ‘mega outlook’ was opposed to Arab concerns.

arabThe apotheosis for Bell was reached in 1921 when Winston Churchill called a famous meet- ing of forty Middle East experts in Cairo. The conference photography shows her as the lone woman. Secreted in the Semiramis Hotel, she and the other ‘forty thieves’ laid out policies whose failures (and Lawrence’s disillusionment) are well known.

Therein lies the tragedy of her life, perhaps more of a tragedy that than of Lawrence. Almost none of the undertakings to the Arabs to which she was an enthusiastic participant were realized. There were a number of these promises, although they were less publicized than those made in the famous McMahon letters. For example, the assurances at the 1916 durbar at Kuwait were equally dishonored: the shaikh of Kuwait received a CSI and Ibn Saud got the KCIE along with pledges that with the defeat of the Turks: “The dream of Arab unity … has been brought nearer fulfillment than dreams are wont to come, but the role of presiding genius has been recast.”


Instead of an Arabian viceregality that would justify the wonderful title of ‘Viceroys of the Gulf,’ or of a ‘final’ resolution of the region’s conflicts, British Imperial administration be- tween the world wars became a long and unsatisfactory interlude in which little was accomplished. Hobson remarks in Imperialism about the use of ‘masked worlds’ and an Imperial Genius for inconsistency: “Most of the men who have misled … have first been obliged to mislead themselves.” This was the case with Gertrude Bell, who committed suicide in 1926. After she and her friends departed the scene, the air went out if the balloon, and the ‘countervailing disadvantages’ of being misled became apparent to the Arabs. This little-known book is one key to heady days at Basra when the Middle East empire seemed likely.

 

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The War in the Cradle of the World

by Eleanor Franklin Egan, Introduction by Paul Rich

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This book is an outstanding example of how the highly subjective and the autobiographical dominated writing about the Middle East in the first half of the twentieth century. Serious political analysis was thin on the ground. Egan was fortunate in the quality of her contacts in the area, including Lt. General Sir William Raine Marshall, who was General Maude’s successor, Brig. General Robert Hughes and Admiral Sir Drury St. Aubyn Wake. 


cradleWartime in Baghdad raises questions about the relationship between the British and the Americans in the Middle East. Early in the nineteenth century the British were apprehensive about American ships trading with the Arabs, and this suspicion of both the Arabs and the Americans continued through the years. After World War I British doubts grew. Unquestionably some of the American institutions in the Middle East were breeding grounds for Arab nationalists. 


Eleanor Egan’s book should not be read for what it tells about Baghdad during a war, but as a reminder that the United States in many ways has inherited the British position in the Gulf. The American military retains a considerable respect for British military traditions.

 

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The Ins and Outs of Mesopotamia

by Thomas Lyell, Introduction by Paul Rich

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This highly opinionated book, written by a British officer in occupied Iraq, first appeared in 1923. Thomas Lyell was completely convinced of the necessity of the British presence in Iraq, and felt his book would help to enlighten Westerns as to the “true” nature of Iraqi life, complicated as it was by the various religious and political factions that existed within the country. Bigoted and prejudiced, though intensely pragmatic, this book is a truly startling expose of the attitude taken by British officers towards the indigenous peoples of the Gulf region, over whose day-to-day lives they were given charge.

insandoutsAgainst a background of the British invasion of the First World War and the subsequent civil war, Lyell presents a portrait of life as he saw it. He explodes in detail the influence of religion on Arab life, both in its domination of everyday affairs and in the antipathy between orthodox Sunnis and unorthodox Shias, believing an appreciation of this to be crucial to any understanding of the area. Although his experiences as a criminal judge may have coloured his views towards the Arabs (whom he considered lawless and unfit for self-government), he is equally castigating of British, Jewish and Kurdish peoples in the region (bemoaning British folly in placing a Sunni of the throne of largely Shia Iraq, and referring to the Kurds as “untrained savages”).

Commenting, in the final section of the book, on the possible future of Iraq, Lyell has grim warnings. He foresaw the influence of the Red Army in the area, the threat of a Kurdish revolution and, in the event of the British pulling out and leaving the Iraqis to govern themselves, a bleak future for the minority elements in the country: “… no conceivable guarantees in the world ensure their safety … All modern civilization and progress would be wiped out.”

 

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Two Years in Kurdistan: Experiences of a Political Officer, 1918-1920

by W. R. Hay, Introduction by Paul Rich

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Kurdistan does not exist as a country, yet it certainly does exist as a nation. A people of great number and antiquity, united by a shared heritage, the Kurds are primarily scattered over five countries—Turley, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Russia. For a great many years they have played the unenviable role of pawns in the Middle East’s turbulent power struggles, manipulated by governments using Kurdish troubles as a means of outmaneuvering their opponents.  


William Rupert Hay was a British political officer who was in charge of the largely Kurdish district of Arbil in northern Iraq from 1918 to 1920. He was given the task of establishing and maintaining British rule in the area in the wake of the invasion of the First World War.  kurdistan


Two Years in Kurdistan is a detailed personal account of Hay’s time in Arbil. It traces his progress from the initial warm welcome given by the Kurds (who were, in the wake of a war, living in terrible conditions and believed that British rule heralded the dawning of a new and better age) through disillusionment at stiffer taxes, tighter laws, and the failure of the British to significantly improve the quality of life to the eventual rebellion of 1920. Through all these events, Hay paints a vivid portrait of the people and places of northern Iraq and many extraordinary experiences, whether it be hunting the outlaw Nuri Bahil (“a patriot and a hero…a sort of Robin Hood”), conversing with the gregarious tribal chief Hama Agha (who claimed to be 130 and fathered a child when 90) or describing attempts on his own life.  


The most important aspect of the book is that it explains the feelings held towards the region by a man who, many years later, was, as British Political Resident, to play a crucial role in shaping the modern Gulf. As Hay noted in 1921, with remarkable relevance to today, “Poor people, I am afraid they must have been bitterly disappointed of the high hopes for the future which they entertained.”

 

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Stanford Patriarchs: Preliminary Notes on the Prosopographical Significance of the Beards, Dundrearies, and Muttonchops of the First (Rather Anonymous) Trustees of Stanford University, with the Rare Bancroft Company Edition of the Founding Documents

by Paul Rich

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Stanford University is a product of the Gilded Age, when robber barons turned their attention to culture. The original Stanford trustees were commemorated in the now rare Bancroft commemorative souvenir volume, which is presented with a commentary by Professor Paul Rich.  

stanford
Paul Rich was Titular Professor of International Relations and History at the University of the Americas—Puebla, Mexico and Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, as well as a fellow of the Royal History Society, and recipient of the James Carter and Cameron awards for social science research. He is a life governor of Harris College, Oxford University and the author of many works on the relationship between ritual and politics.

 

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Elixir of Empire: The English Public Schools, Ritualism, Freemasonry, and Imperialism

by P. J. Rich

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A companion volume, Chains of Empire: English Public Schools, Masonic Cabalism Historical Causality, and Imperial Clubdom, is the second in P. J. Rich’s trilogy about schooling as a political force. Explored are the ways in which the history of education contributes to political science, and the problems facing historians and educators in linking an individual’s education to behaviour. Also discussed are the implications of schools for general biography, the use of prosopographical analysis in determining schools’ influence on culture, and the importance of recent educational research for social theory.

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Chains of Empire: English Public Schools, Masonic Children, Historical Causality, and Imperial Clubdom

by P. J. Rich

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The British Empire’s and the English public schools’ peculiar system of rituals BookCoverImage-7and rewards had more in common than has been realized. In Chains of Empire, Paul Rich related this to controversies about historical causality, morphic resonance, chaos, and the claims to influence of other bastions of the Imperial <i>ethos</i> such as the traditional gentlemen’s clubs of St. James’s. Rituals of Empires considers this symbolism in detail.

With the trilogy English Public Schools and Ritualistic Imperialism, Paul Rich has interjected himself into a lively controversy over the place of the English public schools in British history. Correlli Barnett blamed the English public schools for Britain’s decline, while Cyril Connolly showed that the schoolboy syndrome was a part of British social history. Dr. Rich’s trilogy concerns more than the importance of the schools to Imperial rule: it points to new directions in historiography. In his first volume -Elixir of Empire: English Public Schools, Ritualism, Freemasonry and Imperialism- he asserted that the schools espoused a ritualistic style that shaped the Empire. In Rituals of Empire, the public school symbolism reflected in the epipherma of the Empire is explored – and Dr. Rich further substantiates his assertion that Freemasonry was involved with both British Imperialism and the public schools.

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Freemasonry’s Research Agenda

by Margaret C. Jacob, Preface by Paul J. Rich

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Perhaps it should not be surprising that a secret society remains something of a secret. A telling comment made on several occasions by Pierre Mollier, the librarian of the Grand Orient or premier national body of French Freemasonry, nicely summarizes the state of research into secret societies everywhere, and particularly those movements related to Freemasonry – the neeBookCoverImage-2d to take Masonic history out of the ghetto. Pierre remarks in this regard that it is “quite peculiar” that the two most important historians of French Masonry in the late twentieth century were not Masons, Pierre Chevallier and Alain Le Bihan. Coincidentally, perhaps the two most important historians working in English in the late twentieth century were (and are) Margaret Jacob and David Stevenson, neither of them being Masons. Quite possibly Masonic authors, a phrase Mollier uses in preference to the more complimentary Masonic historian, with a few exceptions, have been in that ghetto and not able to make the contributions that those who are more removed and hence more objective could make. So the subject is that academic rarity: understudied and under researched.

The history of secret and ritualistic organizations is complicated not only by arcane and deliberately obtuse language but also by the fact that despite the authorities such as Professor Jacob, the subject has never received the attention from mainstream scholars that it merits. This is among other reasons quite possibly because of the major bibliographical problems such as limited private publication that are presented even at a national level, let alone the failure to preserve local materials. Individual lodge histories generally appear in editions of a couple hundred copies and are only for the membership. They are not present in the British Library or the Library of Congress. Nor are they of academic quality. The subject really deserves but seldom gets a global perspective. Remarks Michel Brodsky, “The level of research within the Craft is low, and mostly concerns the local history of lodges or remembrance of folk heroes.”i Still, the general calibre of research by non Masons is often little better than that done by Masons.

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Challenges Facing Freemasonry

by John L.L. Cooper III, Preface by Paul J. Rich

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Secrecy and ritualism often go together, although for many societies the secrecy is no longer as strong as it once was. However, ritual remains one of their major characteristics, making them distinct from a large number of other groups that may have a few ceremonies such as passing along the chair’s gavel or investing new members with lapel pins but which are chiefly issue-oriented. Sometimes it is hard to demarcate between a ritualistic and issue-oriented movement. While the Grange, for example, is certainly an agricultural lobby, it has always had a strong ritualistic side. Rotary or the Lions would seem to be more on the service side, but we have all met members who were as enraptured by the Rotary Wheel as anyone ever was by the Masonic square and compass. All of this presents special challenges to understanding.

As Dr. Cooper points out, there can be a change in emphasis over the years. But for all the changes, few public or university libraries take seriously the collecting of material on the Masons, so the serious researcher must get permission to use Masonic archives and libraries. A number date from the nineteenth century and have large holdings. An idea of what they might contain is indicated by the classifications of the Library of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite in Washington, which dates back to 1888 and even then had more than eight thousand volumes. Categories include philosophy and symbolism, church and state, paraphernalia, glassware, benevolent and educational institutions, hospitals, cemeteries, architecture, poetry and drama, humor and satire, and women in Masonry. Paris is unique in having at least four major collections.

Another challenge is understanding the special language and usages that an organization such as the Masons invokes. The more ritualistic the society, the more arcane will be the terminology found in papers. As an example, a considerable problem for the researcher is the dating system used by different Masonic bodies. Ordinary Craft or blue lodge Masons who have taken the first three degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason use the Anno Lucis system, adding 4000 years and giving the year as dated from the Creation. Thus a blue lodge Masonic document of 1995 would be 5995. Royal Arch Masons begin the calendar with the start of work on the Second Temple at Jerusalem in 530 B.C., so that this is the year 2525. Royal and Select Masters number the years from the completion of the original King Solomon’s Temple in 1000 B.C., making this the year 2995. Masonic Knights Templar date documents from the founding of the Order in 1118 and hence this is 877. There are other pitfalls: On occasion the researcher will face documents that have been rendered into cipher or have had critical words removed. He or she will also encounter vast amounts of allegory and metaphor, so that without an advance immersion in the rituals the text will be unintelligible.

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The Republican Manual: History, Priciples, Early Leaders, Achievements of the Republican Party

by E. V. Smalley

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Eugene Smalley was a great journalist and well-known enthusiast for the expansion of the Pacific Northwest and one-time private secretary to President James Garfield. He helped expose the Ku Klux Klan and was a frequent contributor to the Atlantic MonthlBookCoverImage-17y. His stalwart support of the Republican Party started with his youthful enlistment in the Civil War, and this book was intended as a helpmate in the Garfield presidential campaign of 1890.

Dr. Paul Rich is a life member of the American Historical Association and the Organization of American Historians, as well as of the Society for Civil War Historians and the American Studies Association.

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Syria the Land of Lebanon

by Lewis Gaston Leary, Preface by Paul Rich

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BookCoverImage-14This emphatically is not a book about the territory now constituting Syria but about an era when the terms Lebanon and Syria were used in a politically incorrect inept way even by the foreign powers dominating the region. Leary’s son, Lewis Gaston Leary Jr. (1877-1951) carried on the family literary tradition and was the William Rand Kenan Professor English at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Extensive family papers are in the archives there.

Leary taught at what is now the American University in Beirut and during that time traveled extensively in the Middle East. He is a reminder that despite their troubles what are now Lebanon and Syria are full of visual joy.

 

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Lyrics & Love Songs

by Albert Pike, with a new introduction by Paul Rich

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Albert Pike was a Harvard dropout, Confederate general, lawyer for Native American causes, celebrated Masonic leader, and lifelong writer of poems. Erudite in many languages and expert on folklore and mythology, his work “Morals and Dogma” continues to be a major text in the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. Despite his insistence that he was not the author, the much-reprinted poem “The Old Canoe” continues to be attributed to him and figures in this volume of his verses.

 

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Crime 3.0: The Rise of Global Crime in the XXIst Century

Crime 3.0 COVER FRONT ONLY

by Alain Bauer

with a forward by Paul Rich

Alain Bauer argues that we need, with considerable immediacy, to press the formal study of crime in the academy, and that more resources need to be channeled towards that purpose. The approach in universities, if they do deign to study the subject, is often relegated to adjuncts and regarded by the more established departments with disdain. Given the prejudices of conventional scholars towards the subject, it is no wonder that the response to crime has been inept, and grows increasingly inadequate, considering the highly adaptive nature of crime and its implications in a globalized world in the XXIst Century.

Alain Bauer is Professor of Criminology at the French National Conservatory for Arts and Crafts (Paris), and Senior Research Fellow at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (New York) and the University of Law and Political Science of China (Beijing).

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The Wisdom of Thomas Starr King: Thomas Starr King’s Substance and Show

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Two pThe Wisdom of Thomas Starr King COVER FRONT ONLYeaks, one in New Hampshire’s White Mountains and one in Yosemite National Park, are named after Thomas Starr King. He left a brilliant career in Boston to go to San Francisco in 1860, where his convincing oratory was credited with keeping California firmly on the Union side in the Civil War. Along with his commitment to emancipation and the Northern cause, he had a sharp wit and an enviable prose style, which this volume illustrates well.

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Mr. Garfield of Ohio: James S. Brisbin’s The Early Life and Public Career of James A. Garfield

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Edited and Introduced by Paul Rich

There is a lot more to the life of President James Garfield than being shot. He was an educator, clergymMr. Garfield of Ohio COVER FRONT ONLYan, and congressman who carried on those duties with considerable distinction, as well as being a mathematician who discovered, after everyone else for thousands of years had not, an alternative Euclidean proof. While he is honored at Williams College, where his son Harry was longtime president, and as a huge statue on the grounds of the United States capitol, he deserves more attention and this new edition of a useful biography may encourage that.

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Spying on America: Leon G. Turrou’s The Nazi Spy Conspiracy in America

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Edited and Introduced by Paul Rich

Spying On America COVER FRONT ONLYLeon Turrou was the FBI agent closest to the Nazi spy ring in America in the late 1930s.  His leaks to the American press and the book he was allegedly writing led to him being fired from the Bureau by J. Edgar Hoover. But he did publish his book, this book, and then Hollywood made a movie of the case that starred none other than Edward G. Robinson. Turrou was one of America’s original whistleblowers.

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The Essence of Harvard: Charles W. Eliot’s Harvard Memories

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Edited and Introduced by Paul Rich

Charles W. Eliot was the longest tenured Harvard president and one of the founders of the modern American university. He became an iconic figure in American life, called upon for opinions on virtually every subject under the sun. His “five foot shelf” of books that everyone should read became a staple in the American home, and when inscriptions were to be chiseled on the fronts of post offices and libraries, it was to Eliot that an appeal was made for apt words. A dedicated Unitarian whose son, Samuel Eliot, became president of the denomination, he had a pragmatic and common sense approach to life that left little room for moping and despair — although he had his share of grief and loss. He remains not only an important figure in education, but also an exemplar of values of persistence and optimism that are still part of American psyche.

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Collecting American Presidential Autographs

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Paul C. Richards, Edited and Introduced by Paul Rich

The collecting of autographs of American presidents is done with a passion that is not found about similar figures in other countries.  Canadian prime ministers or Finnish presidents are not the focus of hobbyists. The enthusiasm of getting a set of presidential signatures is something of a comment on the energetic American historical emphasis on the country’s chief executives. Even in George Washington’s time there were forgers who allegedly would produce a Washington letter for a drink at a tavern, so the authenticity of Presidents is a subject marked by intrigue and misadventure. Paul C. Richards’ scarce volume is a useful guide to a subject marked by increasingly high prices in the auction rooms. He was a great benefactor of Boston University, where his Robert Frost and Theodore Roosevelt collections are a permanent testimony to his relentless searching of attics and garrets and shrewd purchases.

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Treasures of London: P.H. Ditchfield’s London Survivals

Edited and Introduced by Paul Rich

Peter Ditchfield (1854-1930) was a graduate of Oriel College, Oxford, and sometime Inspector of Schools
 for Diocese Of Oxford. He was Rector of Barkham from 1886 until his death. A leading Freemason, he was Grand Chaplain of the Grand Lodge of England as well as of the Mark Grand Lodge. He was a passionate historian of old England and wrote about English sporting customs, cathedrals, ancient guilds, village folk traditions, and in this volume about the byways of London. The destruction of parts of the old city during World War II makes this a valuable source of architectural history.

 

 

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Masonic Tombstones and Masonic Secrets: Dora C. Jett’s Minor Sketches of Major Folk

Edited and Introduced by Paul Rich
Freemasonry carries its secrets beyond death. Masonic funeral ceremonies, the placing of the apron and sprig of acacia in the coffin, and internment rites at burial are part of Craft’s rituals. The carvings on tombstones of Masonic cemeteries are a source of esoteric engravings and guide to evolving initiations and degrees. For the historian, a great value is the evidence they provide of past associations between the brethren behind the doors of the lodge. The old Masonic Burial Ground in Fredricksburg, Virginia, is a museum of patriots, and Jett’s long out of print book is a valuable footnote to early American history as well as to the lives connected in one way or another by the secret fraternity. Fortunately the cemetery still is properly maintained and this volume can serve as a guide.

 

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Making Trouble for Muslims: A. Rawlinson’s Adventures in the Near East

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Edited and Introduced by Paul Rich

Sir Alfred Rawlinson, the son of a famous Orientalist and envoy to Persia, was himself a pioneer aviator, celebrated sportsman, and important British intelligence officer. As a colonel in the British intelligence corps, he played a significant role in the Middle East. His capture, imprisonment, and unhappy deprivations at the hands of the Turks was in its time a celebrated incident.

Since the concept of Orientalism was popularized by Edward Said, the notion that views of the Muslim world were colored and slanted by Western prejudices has revised attitudes of the British imperial cadre that were such an influence on the region. Lawrence of Arabia and his contemporaries have been much more closely scrutinized than they were by earlier generations of scholars.  So Sir Alfred’s book can be read both as an eyewitness account of a highly formative era and for his attitudes so candidly expressed in this still exciting book.