Queen of the Desert

Just finished Georgina Howell's biography, Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations. (I read the Kindle edition, which was okay but lacked all the illustrations except maps.) Despite the fact that there have been three recent biographies of Bell -- Howell's (2010), Janet Wallach's, Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell, Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia (2005), and a more scholarly book by H.V.F. Winstone, Gertrude Bell: A Biography (2004) -- Georgina Howell and Janet Wallach are determined to bring Bell's reputation back from oblivion.

In fact, Bell was somewhat overshadowed by T.E. Lawrence, and her reputation seemed to wane rather quickly after her death in 1926. In any case, it would be beneficial for many current policy makers concerned with the Middle East to read not only Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, but also Bell's published reports on Arabia and Mesopotamia. Lawrence and Bell had a profound understanding of the complex character of the peoples of the Middle East, and both seemed acutely aware that the Western powers were making serious errors in judgement in their handling of that area both before and after World War I.

But there was much more to Gertrude Bell than her interest in the desert and the Bedouin tribes, and Georgina Howell's enthusiastic biography explains why so many who knew her were drawn to her personality, despite her brashness and intellectual arrogance. Her accomplishments as a mountain climber or archaeologist or administrator would have earned her a notable place in history had she never been involved with the war in Arabia. She was clearly an extraordinary woman, and demonstrated intellectual superiority, personal courage, and physical endurance that put many of her male contemporaries to shame, something that may help account for her lifelong difficulties with men. In addition, according to Howell, Gertrude suffered from an acute fear of sexual intimacy that seems almost a tragic parody of our notions of Victorian prudery.

This is an interesting book, but although Howell has done a thorough job of researching Bell, it lacks some of the excitement and air of adventure one gets in books by and about Lawrence. The fact is, despite her knowledge of and access to the famous Bedouin leaders -- extraordinary for any European, let alone a woman -- Bell did not experience the drama of the desert war in the same way that Lawrence of Arabia did. Or if she did, she left no record of those exploits. (Howell suggests that there may have been adventures that Bell never recorded or shared with her family and friends.) The result is that Howell seems to go over some of the same biographical material again and again as she shifts her perspective and recounts the same episodes from slightly different perspectives.

Nevertheless, this period is one of my favorites, and the continuing muddle the West has made in the Middle East, makes me wish that those who have chosen to be responsible for the mess we've made, would have spent more time reading what Bell and Lawrence have to tell us. Our failures are so obviously inevitable given our ignorance and stubbornness, just as the failures of British policy were so obvious to Bell and Lawrence, particularly with regard to Palestine, for example. In that part of the world, George Santayana's observation that those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it seems to have been borne out again and again.