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LAWRENCE OF ARABIA by Philip Knightley

LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

By

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 1976
Publisher: Nelson

Needless to say, several of the Secret Lives of Lawrence of Arabia that Knightley and co-author Colin Simpson exposed in 1970 are kept under wraps here, though reserve rather than outright fudging characterizes their approach to his personal eccentricities, and Knightley's previous harsh judgment of British policy towards the Arabs is muted but not reversed. It is Lawrence the adventurer who stands out here--toughening himself with exercise and fasting as a schoolboy, and outdoing his Arab soldiers at camel riding and marksmanship. But the portrait is still more comprehensive chronologically and more rounded psychologically than Alistair McLean's 1962 Landmark entry, and Knightley plays out the exciting action without resorting to made-up dialogue or grandstanding prose.