Gertude Bell

Gertrude Bell, Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations by Georgina Howell

Category: Biography Grade: A

I consider myself well-educated and well-read so, after reading this book, it's pretty mind-boggling to me that I had never actually heard of Gertrude Bell. In my unscientific poll of friends and family, essentially no one had ever heard of her other than a few who had recently seen this book on the shelves. In the first half of the 20th century, especially between the World Wars, Bell was one of the most interesting, most adventurous, most influential and probably most important women alive. In the Middle East, she was probably the one person, per this book, responsible for the decisions made in how the imperial powers would treat this area of the world. Certainly far more important to history than T. E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia) who has gotten all the good press and, of course, the Oscar winning movie. Hopefully, this book will kick off a resurgence in interest in Bell. Her life would make an incredible movie!

Born in the late 19th century, Bell, from the beginning, discarded the roll assigned to women of the time. What she wanted to do, she did. She became a traveler and adventurer - visiting all over the world and becoming one of the foremost mountain climbers, certainly the foremost female mountain climber, of the day. When she decided she was interested in the Middle East, she learned from the bottom up - by repeatedly hiring a small party of guides and heading in to the desert for months and even years at a time. In an era (still the norm today), when the sheikhs of the region were absolute rulers of their tiny area and when women were not accepted anywhere except the harem, Bell became an unveiled, intellectual friend to the male leaders. When, after World War I, the time came to decide the political future of the area, Bell was the strongest proponent for the independence of Middle Eastern countries. And yet, first hand, she understood the difficulties that would arise from the inherent tribalism as a competitor to nationalism. She drew the borders of modern Iraq. She was largely responsible for elevating King Faisel to the initial throne of Iraq. She was a major advisor to Churchill and others at the time.

Not surprisingly, this story is extremely relevant to the world today. The political lessons that Bell learned the hard way - the dominance of tribalism and religious sects over national identity - seem to have been, once again, forgotten by Western powers. The seeds of our current inability to bring coherence to the region are definitely visible in Bell's story. I highly recommend this book to anybody who is interested in history, current affairs or even just good story telling.