Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations, (Paperback)

from eglinton

Energetic life of the remarkable Bell, avidly trekking through the lands of Arabia, ticking off high Alpine peaks as a mountaineering pioneer, midwifing the state of Iraq after the Ottoman collapse as confidante of King Faisal, assembling antiquities from the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia....

from Eye_Gee

I wanted to know more about how the middle east was carved up after WWI, and this book told part of the story. d

from karenmerguerian

I was prepared to think of Gertrude Bell as an imperialist, she turned out to be a much more complex figure. An open person who was fascinated by the Middle East and sympathetic to the Arab tribes, she made an effort to live in their midst and learn their language. Her life and the lives of the p...

from nx74defiant

I really enjoyed this book. I didn't really know anything about Gertrude Bell before I read this book. She was a fascinating woman. She traveled alone across Arabia. In many ways she was a head of her time. Yet, in many ways she was a product of her time. She would not marry when her father refus...

from dele2451

In a time when many women led limited existences, Gertrude Bell broke out of the "traditional" roles that could have easily been her station in life and learned languages, conducted archaeological digs, completed desert expeditions, mapped unknown territories, climbed mountains, and many more dif...