This is a fascinating book, the product of extended and wide-ranging research into the life of Gertrude Bell. Lukitz writes vividly and entertainingly about the unbelievable exploits of a British woman, during and after World War I, when feminism was as yet an unexplored notion. Gertrude Bell, almost single-handedly created the Iraq that went down many years later with Saddam Hussein. Bell, brilliant, educated, passionate and immensely patient, stood up to her male peers and gained the respect of the many tribes and nations of the Mesopotamia which later combined into a nation state. This is a remarkable account of a woman who, without the blaring of the trumpets that surrounded the myth of TE Lawrence, firmly established her place in history. Lukitz brings Gertrude back to life and shows us what we have forgotten about the Middle East that has now come to haunt us.
Gertrude Bell was a commanding figure: scholar, linguist, archaeologist, traveler and 'orientalist'. A remarkable woman in male-dominated Edwardian sociThe Daety, she shunned convention by eschewing marriage and family for an academic career and extensive traveling. But her private life was marred by the tragedy, vulnerability and frustration that were key to her quest both for a British dominated Middle East and relief from the torture of her romantic failures. Through her vivid writings, she brought the Arab world alive for countless Britons. Alongside T.E. Lawrence, she was hugely instrumental in the post-war reconfiguration of the Arab states in the Middle East. In Iraq she became friend and confidante of the new King Faisal, and a prime mover in drawing up the country's boundaries and establishing a constitutional monarchy there, with its parliament, civil service and legal system. She was influential in creating the state which had all the trappings of independence while remaining a virtual British colony. The legacy of her work is still being played out in the conflicts of today. Yet behind her public success was a backdrop of personal passions, desires and the relationships that drove this extraordinary woman. Embroiled in an unsuccessful love affair with Charles Doughty-Wylie, a married man, she found peace in the solitude of the desert. But the seemingly intractable problems of the newly independent Iraq led her to write of the 'weariness of it all'. Shortly afterwards she took her own life with a lethal dose of sleeping pills. Using previously unseen sources, including Gertude Bell's own diaries and letters, Lukitz provides a deeper political and personal biography of this influential character.
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