{"product_id":"gertrude-bell-the-arabian-diaries-1913-1914-9780815606727","title":"Gertrude Bell: The Arabian Diaries, 1913-1914","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Englishwoman Gertrude Bell lived an extraordinary life. Her adventures are the stuff of novels: she rode with bandits; braved desert shamals; was captured by Bedouins; and sojourned in a harem. Called the most powerful woman in the British Empire, she counseled kings and prime ministers. Bell's colleagues included Lloyd George and Winston Churchill, who in 1921 invited Bell--the only woman whose advice was sought--to the Cairo Conference to \"determine the future of Mesopotamia.\" Bell numbered among her closest friends T.E. Lawrence, St. John Philby, and Arabian sheiks. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn this volume of three of her notebooks, Rosemary O'Brien preserves Bell's elegant, vibrant prose, and presents Bell as a brilliant tactician fearlessly confronting her own vulnerability. The fundamental themes of her life--reckless behavior; a divided self which combined brilliance of intellect with a passionate nature; a sense of history; and the fatal gift of falling in love with a married man--are all here in remarkable detail. Her journey to northern Arabia in 1914 earned Bell professional recognition from the Royal Geographical Society, and solidified her reputation as a canny political analyst of Middle Eastern affairs. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eIn addition to Bell's own photographs, O'Brien has provided us an unprecedented first access to excerpts of the Bell\/Richard Doughty-Wyllie love letters, the married British army officer with whom she was in love and for whom her diaries were written.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRosemary O'Brien\u003c\/b\u003e is a journalist and editor. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Syracuse University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50413389644050,"sku":"9780815606727","price":21.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_0e423b83-94b0-4107-8d21-f674a717e547.jpg?v=1729353257","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/gertrude-bell-the-arabian-diaries-1913-1914-9780815606727","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}