attytheresa's review
5.0
I started sobbing as I read the final pages describing Gertrude Bell's death and funeral. After spending most of the last week absorbed in this superb biography of her life and work in Mesopotamia (now Iraq), her death was a personal loss that cuts deep.
To him and to many others, the Khatun [the 'Lady'] was the embodiment of the British Empire, the personification of British power. She overcame the obstacles and made her mark on history, and in the end, she was what she had wanted most to be: Miss Gertrude Bell was a Person.
An aristocratic Englishwoman, courageous, curious, confident, wearing lace and silk and armed with a fur stole, large flower-bedecked hat, and a parasol, Gertrude Bell as a young woman in her 20s launched herself on a solo trip by camel across the deserts of the Middle East, learning the Arab world as no European, certainly no Brit, had ever done to that time. One of the most brilliant minds of the 20th Century, the relationships she developed on these treks through Mesopotamia prior to WWI ultimately led to her becoming a spy, a diplomat, a cartographer, and ultimately the lynchpin for the creation of the modern Middle East. In fact, the boundaries of Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc. were devised by Gertrude Bell. Formidable but utterly feminine, she saw herself as intellectually masculine, and certainly not a feminist. Although I would argue that whether she saw herself in that light or not, she was without a doubt a feminist, in spite of her anti-suffrage stance! Gertrude was also a workaholic and often intensely lonely and isolated; her greatest regret was never having married and borne children. Gertrude mostly looked at other women with disdain, most of her female contacts being the wives of the political appointees to Baghdad or of the Arab sheikhs. Yet, for all her impatience at these women's shallowness and lack of spirit, she did much to improve the lot of Arabian women with education, health care and western ideas. Gertrude surrounded herself with men whom she considered her intellectual equals.
In fact, these contradictions make her incredibly human and thus someone who you can understand, champion, deplore; in short, invest several days reading about. It doesn't hurt that Wallach's research involved an incredible wealth of primary research materials, including interviews with a few men who actually knew Gertrude (this was originally published in 1996, making the period of her research prior to the Iraq War and a time when some who knew her would still be alive if quite old). And aside from all she accomplished politically in Mesopotamia, there is so much more: her love or archeology and history, particularly of Mesopotamia, ultimately led to her establishment of the Baghdad Museum, renowned for its antiquities, that was destroyed just a dozen years or so ago during the Iraq War. She was an avid mountaineer, with a peak in the Alps named for her as she was one of the first to scale it. An avid flower gardener, she brought many species of flowers, like daffodils to Baghdad, being the first to plant them there. And as her story is told, her travels go from ship and camel to horseback, car and airplane. Extraordinary.
But it isn't just the story of Gertrude herself that so captivated me. Wallach does a superb job of painting the historical and political scene in which Gertrude lived and worked, particularly once she committed herself to Mesopotamia. Wallach succeeds in making accessible the complex tribal relationships, the exotic names, and shifting allegiances. This is a superb primer of how the modern Middle East began.
ATY#44
To him and to many others, the Khatun [the 'Lady'] was the embodiment of the British Empire, the personification of British power. She overcame the obstacles and made her mark on history, and in the end, she was what she had wanted most to be: Miss Gertrude Bell was a Person.
An aristocratic Englishwoman, courageous, curious, confident, wearing lace and silk and armed with a fur stole, large flower-bedecked hat, and a parasol, Gertrude Bell as a young woman in her 20s launched herself on a solo trip by camel across the deserts of the Middle East, learning the Arab world as no European, certainly no Brit, had ever done to that time. One of the most brilliant minds of the 20th Century, the relationships she developed on these treks through Mesopotamia prior to WWI ultimately led to her becoming a spy, a diplomat, a cartographer, and ultimately the lynchpin for the creation of the modern Middle East. In fact, the boundaries of Kuwait, Iraq, Iran, Syria, etc. were devised by Gertrude Bell. Formidable but utterly feminine, she saw herself as intellectually masculine, and certainly not a feminist. Although I would argue that whether she saw herself in that light or not, she was without a doubt a feminist, in spite of her anti-suffrage stance! Gertrude was also a workaholic and often intensely lonely and isolated; her greatest regret was never having married and borne children. Gertrude mostly looked at other women with disdain, most of her female contacts being the wives of the political appointees to Baghdad or of the Arab sheikhs. Yet, for all her impatience at these women's shallowness and lack of spirit, she did much to improve the lot of Arabian women with education, health care and western ideas. Gertrude surrounded herself with men whom she considered her intellectual equals.
In fact, these contradictions make her incredibly human and thus someone who you can understand, champion, deplore; in short, invest several days reading about. It doesn't hurt that Wallach's research involved an incredible wealth of primary research materials, including interviews with a few men who actually knew Gertrude (this was originally published in 1996, making the period of her research prior to the Iraq War and a time when some who knew her would still be alive if quite old). And aside from all she accomplished politically in Mesopotamia, there is so much more: her love or archeology and history, particularly of Mesopotamia, ultimately led to her establishment of the Baghdad Museum, renowned for its antiquities, that was destroyed just a dozen years or so ago during the Iraq War. She was an avid mountaineer, with a peak in the Alps named for her as she was one of the first to scale it. An avid flower gardener, she brought many species of flowers, like daffodils to Baghdad, being the first to plant them there. And as her story is told, her travels go from ship and camel to horseback, car and airplane. Extraordinary.
But it isn't just the story of Gertrude herself that so captivated me. Wallach does a superb job of painting the historical and political scene in which Gertrude lived and worked, particularly once she committed herself to Mesopotamia. Wallach succeeds in making accessible the complex tribal relationships, the exotic names, and shifting allegiances. This is a superb primer of how the modern Middle East began.
ATY#44
octavia_cade's review against another edition
4.0
There are some biographies that just make you feel as if you've done nothing with your life. Enter Gertrude Bell, who when not climbing mountains and travelling the globe late in the 19th century, went to the Middle East, fell in love with it, and started working as an archaeologist. And apparently was happy as all get-out, wandering through the countryside, messing about with ruins and making friends with various tribes living out in the desert, all of whom must have been absolutely astonished to see this crazy woman and her ridiculous mountain of luggage traipsing through the sand dunes.
But come WW1, Gertrude's focus begins to change. She comes back home to England, starts working for the Red Cross in France, but fairly soon is back in the ME, because it's clear to pretty much every Briton working there that she's the only real expert in the people of that region that they have. But Gerty has her own agenda, one that's only sometimes supported by her own colonisation-prone government, and that's to cobble an independent nation out of war and conflict... and it turns out this is how Iraq comes into existence. Oh, there are other factors, and I'm not trying to simplify what was clearly a monstrously complex situation, but what this woman managed to achieve is nothing short of incredible. I'd never heard of her before fishing this book off the shelves of the local library but I'm so glad I picked it up because the whole thing is fascinating. Howell's biography is particularly readable, very attuned to personality and character, and though occasionally dense in places (as the focus on politics picks up, there's a lot of names and details to keep track of) it's still a genuinely entertaining story, as well as an informative one.
But come WW1, Gertrude's focus begins to change. She comes back home to England, starts working for the Red Cross in France, but fairly soon is back in the ME, because it's clear to pretty much every Briton working there that she's the only real expert in the people of that region that they have. But Gerty has her own agenda, one that's only sometimes supported by her own colonisation-prone government, and that's to cobble an independent nation out of war and conflict... and it turns out this is how Iraq comes into existence. Oh, there are other factors, and I'm not trying to simplify what was clearly a monstrously complex situation, but what this woman managed to achieve is nothing short of incredible. I'd never heard of her before fishing this book off the shelves of the local library but I'm so glad I picked it up because the whole thing is fascinating. Howell's biography is particularly readable, very attuned to personality and character, and though occasionally dense in places (as the focus on politics picks up, there's a lot of names and details to keep track of) it's still a genuinely entertaining story, as well as an informative one.
mdabernig's review
4.0
This starts a little dry, and you get the impression that it is a very biased account so it doesn't read as a particularly reliable portrayal of history, but despite this, it progresses into a very good, and informative read on an extraordinary woman in a fascinating period of history.
This covers a lot of stuff, taken primarily from her letters and writing. It takes a while to pick up...it doesn't have the colour or warmth that a lot of biographies can have so it is a bit of work to get through, but if you can stick through the first portion, it is worth the effort as it picks up about a quarter of the way through.
This covers a lot of stuff, taken primarily from her letters and writing. It takes a while to pick up...it doesn't have the colour or warmth that a lot of biographies can have so it is a bit of work to get through, but if you can stick through the first portion, it is worth the effort as it picks up about a quarter of the way through.
katheryn's review against another edition
4.0
I first heard about Gertrude Bell as the former occupant of Red Barns, a building in Redcar (on the north-east coast of England), which is where most of my family live. When I was in the area last summer, I visited a local museum which had an exhibition on Gertrude Bell, and it was here that I bought this book.
Desert Queen is the perfect book for readers with an interest in this fascinating woman, and with only limited knowledge (if any) of her equally fascinating life. Wallach entwines her narration with excerpts from Gertrude's own letters, which really help the reader to get a sense of what she was like, as well as to get a firmer grasp on the events themselves. My only observation was that at times Wallach perhaps embellishes a touch too much in order to set the scene. For me this became noticable during some of her descriptions of Gertrude's time at Oxford, where I am currently a student. However, this doesn't detract from a highly readable and informative book on a woman who deserves to be far better known.
Desert Queen is the perfect book for readers with an interest in this fascinating woman, and with only limited knowledge (if any) of her equally fascinating life. Wallach entwines her narration with excerpts from Gertrude's own letters, which really help the reader to get a sense of what she was like, as well as to get a firmer grasp on the events themselves. My only observation was that at times Wallach perhaps embellishes a touch too much in order to set the scene. For me this became noticable during some of her descriptions of Gertrude's time at Oxford, where I am currently a student. However, this doesn't detract from a highly readable and informative book on a woman who deserves to be far better known.
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