Goodreads Review: Desert Queen by Janet Wallach

Preface: Once again, I'm going to try keeping track of the books I read this year. I was doing pretty well at this last year until October or so when I lost the notebook where I'd been writing them down. Argh. I'm on Goodreads but haven't really used it much except to look up possible reads - although it's not quite as easy without a smartphone, I'm going to give that a try this year. And maybe take a shot at talking about the ones I like. This one, for starters. 

  Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia by Janet Wallach
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An excellent book about a really fascinating woman who completely sidestepped the expectations of her time (partly by choice, and partly by circumstances, and to her joy and sadness both), and also an excellent look at the process that produced the modern Middle East. I knew that the countries we see in the news now were somewhat of an artificial creation dating to the decline of the British Empire, and I'm sure a poor history teacher or two tried to get some details into my skull at some point, but that was all a long time ago so I was quite ready for a review.

Does require reading with relativism filters on - as a modern reader, the paternalism of the British/Western attitudes - even those of Miss Bell herself - made for some uncomfortable passages, but this is how it was done (and maybe is still done today - and certainly the oil that was a key driver in proceedings then absolutely continues to be - that part wasn't any shock) and the read is well worth the occasional gritting of teeth in which you may find yourself engaged.

Also fascinating to read the final chapter of this 1996 book, knowing what was yet to come, including, so sadly, the looting of the very museum that was one of Bell's lasting achievements in the newly-minted county. In fact, my next stop after this is going to be Wikipedia's article about the museum, just to refresh my memory of what happened, and find out how it's doing now, and that's always one measure of success for a history for me - if I put down the book at the end and then start doing additional reading, just because it sparked curiosity, it was a good one.

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