Daughter of the Desert: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell

"Archaeologist, spy, Arabist, linguist, author, poet, photographer, mountaineer and nation builder, Gertrude Bell was born in 1868 into a world of privilege and plenty. The daughter of a wealthy industrialist, Gertrude turned her back on house parties and debutante balls, choosing instead to read history at Oxford, where she took a first in only two years." "Having scaled Oxford's ivory tower and become frustrated by the conventional life she was expected to lead, she took up mountaineering with the same skill and dedication she had applied to her studies, ultimately conquering the Alps' most challenging peak, the Matterhorn. But her passion was the desert, where she travelled alone, initially as an archaeologist. Soon, however, through her knowledge of Arabic and tribal affiliations she became indispensable to the Cairo Intelligence Office of the British government. A friend and colleague of T.E. Lawrence during the First World War, and at the time considerably more famous than he, she went on to advise the Viceroy of India, then travelled from Delhi to the front line in Mesopotamia as an army major. There she took up and steadily upheld the principle of an autonomous Arab nation for Iraq, promoting and manipulating the election of King Faisal to the throne and helping to draw the borders of the fledgling state, which would prosper under the same dynasty for thirty-two years."