Setting the Desert on Fire: T. E. Lawrence and Britain's Secret War in Arabia, 1916-1918

Well worth the read for several reasons: Gives the reader a better perspective of the extremely complex situation. Includes information from the German side I have not seen before. Provides information on the present state of many historic sites. I would like to see more from the Turk and German side in any future attempts to deal with this. I assume that angle has been written but never published widely in English.

Chapter 19 on the Dera episode is perhaps somewhat unkind. Of course one cannot not be perfectly clear on the single missing page in Lawrence's diary. I would have like to have seen photos of the adjacent pages, a mention of the possibility that Mrs. Shaw may have removed it, a mention of evidence going against the author's theory (in that there is a statement of a military doctor who treated Lawrence soon after the Dera incident and there are statements by other colleagues saying that they did not question that the event did in fact occur and why).

One never is able to chose the order of their books, but this book is best savored after reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1922 Oxford Edition), Safety Last, and Orientations. Better to read the word of TEL's fellow officers before taking on the modern perspective.

The author obviously loves his subject and has done his work extremely well.

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