booktv -- now in its 15th year on c-span2 -- is looking back at authors, books and publishing news. and you can watch all of the programs online at booktv.org. >> next on booktv, war correspondent scott anderson talks about team lawrence and the involvement of britain, france, russia and the u.s. in the middle east during the middle century. this is about an hour, 20. [applause] >> thanks very much. thank you, sherman, for that introduction. >> and what i've asked scott to do is to give his own autobiography to ground us in the linear ethic of what the world is. >> yeah. i'll just talk briefly on that. my, i was raised overseas, and my father was with a.i.d. in east asia, so i actually grew up in asia, really didn't spend any time in the states until came here just to go to high school as a teenager. and i think that having with

that background, the idea of having a conventional career, um, and basing in the united states was a little hard to imagine and with my brother also, john lee anderson. so we both immediately tried to figure out how we could get back overseas and stumbled into journalism as a way to do that. we, john lee and i did two books together, "inside the league" which sherman mentioned and "war zones" which was a oral history from five different worlds taking place in the mid 1980s around the world. and in the years since then, i've, along with writing books, both nonfiction books and novels, i've run, i write primarily for "the new york times" magazine, long feature articles. usually in war zones, but almost always internationally. from the time i've spent in the middle east, what comes up when you ever have a really involved

conversation with somebody in the middle east, invariably you go back to the decisions that were made almost a hundred years ago now. the decisions, and by most accounts the mistakes that were made at the end of world war i. in addition to that, i saw the movie "lawrence of arabia" as a kid and was utterly fascinated by both him and the desert, and so about five years ago i decided i wanted to do a book on lawrence of arabia of looking at him as a prism through which to understand what happened in the middle east at the end of world war i and why it is the way it is today. so, obviously, i'm going to primarily talk about the middle east, but to understand what happened there in world war i, you kind of need to know a few things about, like, an overview about the war on europe or how

the war even came about. most historians looking at world war i now they, it's sort of seen as a perfect storm of stupidity that all kind of came together and created this worldwide catastrophe. but, in fact, there was, you could really divide it up into four distinct perfect storms of idiocy. the four are what led up to the war, the diplomatic maneuverings that collapsed and led to the war, the second being the military conduct of the war, the third being the political considerations that occurred during the war, and then the fourth, the peace afterwards, the paris peace conference. so i'm just going to briefly talk about the first three which kind of brings us to the middle east. one of the first misconceptions, general misconceptions about

world war i and the imperial powers in europe battling each other is that it was about the maintaining of empire. it actually was, and it's an understandable misconception to have considering that world war i was actually the graveyard of empire. the six great empires of europe, four disappeared completely -- germany, austria/hungry and the tsarist russia -- and the two that survived, britain and france, were so weakened by the war that they within 30, 40 years, they were finished also. but, in fact, what it was about was the expansion of empire. and, again, it seems almost ludicrous to imagine that now. but how that came about, to understand why this is about the expansion of empire, you have to look at what happened around the world 30, 40 years prior to that and specifically the scramble for africa. in the 40 years prior to the

outbreak of world war i, all of africa was subjugated and colonized by europe. and they were able to do so largely through the incredible advances that have been made in communications, transportation and most specifically weaponry. to give one example, the battle of -- [inaudible] which is a sister city of or khartoum in sudan, in 1898 the british army lost in one morning 47 dead while killing 10,000 of the enemy. and the reason they were able to do that is because the enemy were on horses carrying spears, and they had machine guns. so what especially with the scramble for africa, it really infused all of europe, all the european empires with this amazing sense of both churl and racial -- cultural and racial superiority. and so as they jockeyed for position locally in europe,

they're also looking where could they go next. what was left in the world? east asia had been colonized, the brush had india, africa had been colonized, the americans weren't going to let the europeans into the western hemisphere in any significant way because of the monroe doctrine. so what was left was, essentially, the middle east. and the ottoman empire. by the outbreak of the war in 1914, the ottoman empire had been in a long state of eclipse. the different european powers, and every european power with the exception of germany had taken terms snatching bits of the ottoman empire. the french had grabbed morocco and tunisia, the british had grabbed india, the russians had moved into what was the former ottoman lands of southeastern europe. so this was, this was going to be the place where the next generation of colonies and the

building up of empire. but what happened when the war started is they very quickly realized, very few people -- most people -- the war started in august of 1914. most people thought the war was going to be over by christmas. but what they had forgotten, with very few exceptions, to take into account is it's one thing to machine gun arab tribesmen when they're armed with spears. war becomes a very different game when the other side also has machine guns. what happened in the first month of world war i was unparalleled in, certainly in european history, if not world history. the french in the first three weeks of the war suffered over a quarter million casualties. britain, which over the previous century had fought over 40 wars, mostly colonial but also including the crimean war and

the boor war, over the previous hundred years the british lost less than 40,000 soldiers in combat. in the four years of world war i, they were losing 20 times that number. and the most amazing statistic i came across was that in just a two-year period between 1913 and 1915, so 1915 you're one year into the war, the life expectancy of a french male went from 50 years of age to 27. so this was the second perfect storm of stupidity that i was talking about which kind of led to the third. so in the face of such a absolute disaster for all parties concerned, it would seem reasonable that they would then set about trying to figure out a way out of the morass. this was such a different war than anyone was expecting, so now how do you get out of it. but, in fact, they did just the opposite. instead of searching out

compromise or lessening their demands, they actually expanded them. because if you have a quarter of a million casualties like the french did at the beginning of the war but now you're a year into the war and that casualty count is on its way to 1.3 million, it all has to be worth something. how do you justify that sort of slaughter and loss of treasury? your demands get bigger. and so what happened as the war went on is that the territorial demands increased. and be, again, it was all centered -- the map of europe wasn't going to change very much. france was going to grab back two provinces that the germans had taken from them in the franco-prussian war in 1870, but france was not going to occupy germany. they would get war reparations, but it wasn't like germany was going to discuss appear from the map. so the part of the map that could still get carved up was

the middle east x. the reason that that was was because, in a case of really awful decision making, the ottoman empire came into the war on the side of germany, on the side of the central powers, germany and austria-hungary about three months after the war had started. so if germany and austria-hungary won, germany -- they would economically and politically dominate the middle east after the war. if britain and france won the war and russia, the triple entente, they were going to carve up the entire region. and as soon as the ottoman empire entered the war, the british started referring to euphemism for the ottoman empire was the great loot, because that's what -- it was going to be just a looting that was going to happen after the war. i just want to briefly talk

about what the ottoman empire was like. and, again, this redounds today. the ottoman empire had existed for five centuries, and even though over the previous century it had been nibbled away at, one of the -- probably the unique feature of the ottoman empire and the key to it arriving, economically, militarily it had always been weak, they had the the -- they had this system that gave an incredible amount of autonomy in local ethnic, tribal, religious groups. to be part of the ottoman empire, really all you had to do was pay taxes and answer the prodescription rates of the ottoman army. as long as you did that, you would be pretty much left alone. so what you had across the ottoman empire were very strong

tribe and clan fiefdoms, you had a huge armenian-christian population, you had a jewish, a small jewish population in palestine. catholics in syria, huge catholic population. so it was this great polyglot empire, and far more so than any of the european empires. in 1908 -- but it was also very decrepit, and it was falling apart. the sultan of the ottoman empire was fabulously corrupt and enfeebled. and in 1908, six years before world war i, a group of young, progressive military officers who became known as the young turks overthrew, basically overthrew this sultan. they kept him on as a figurehead, but they became the de facto controllers of the ottoman empire. they had three main ideas, kind of pranks of how to appeal to this vast and very disparate

empire. one was there was going to be a renaissance of islam, the second was this renaissance of the turkic people, the ethnic turks being in turkey and then central asia. and the third just progressivism, of bringing the ottoman empire into the 20th century through emancipating women, freeing slaves. there was still slavery in parts of the ottoman empire, especially in arabia. but the problem with these three ideas is went you have such a polyglot empire is if it was designed to, if everybody, every component of that empire would have something that would draw them to it, would be attractive to it. they actually gave everybody something to fear. over half the population of the ottoman empire wasn't turkish, so this idea of kind of rise of

turkish nationalism wasn't going to have any appeal to the arabs, arab population. or the renaissance of islam also very frightening to the armenian kris cans and to the syrian -- christians and to the syrian catholics. and most significantly for our story, this idea of bringing the ottoman empire into the 20th century was anathema to really conservative elements that, basically, wanted the region to stay in the 14th century. and specifically with this was the emir of hajas. it's basically western saudi arabia bordering along the red sea. his name was emir hussein. and in 1913 as the ottomans continually tried to bring him into line, he sent his son -- he

had four sons, a son named abdullah -- he sent him to cairo where he met with the british governor general who at the time was a man named kitchener who will come back up in a minute. and he basically asked what would the british do if the arabs went into revolt against the ottoman empire? kitchener just blew him off because the war hadn't started, the british had good relations with the ottomans, and so he just sent him packing on his way. when world war i started, kitchener -- who's now minister of -- [inaudible] for the british -- he remembered his conversation with abdullah, and he sent a message to hussein, his father, basically saying what will it take for you to join our side? and what, what proceeded to happen was a long negotiation over about a year between the

man who replaced kitchener as governor general in egypt and king hussein to try to get the arabs in arabia to revolt. and it cull culminated in this correspondence back and forth which is called the mcman- hussein correspondence. it culminated in october 1915 with an agreement where the british basically recognized independence for virtually the entire arab world. with the exception of that they wanted to, they had discovered oil in basra, in present-day iraq, so they wanted to lease a portion of what is today iraq and an area north of lebanon now along the coast which they had said it's not primarily arab, it's very mixed, there's a huge christian population there. so they excluded that from the agreement. but virtually everything else was going to be an independent

arab nation. the british had done this without ever consulting their chief allies, france and russia. so when they made a deal with hussein, the british thought, you know, maybe we should finish. [laughter] maybe we should check with our allies and see how they feel about this. so they, i have a slide i'll show in a minute, a man named mark sykes was sent to meet with the french diplomats and just to kind of sound out what the french might want in the middle east. and as it turned out, the french basically wanted everything. they wanted, they wanted what is today syria, lebanon, iraq, israel and jordan. they wanted, they wanted everything. what ensued was discussions between mark sykes and his french counterpart where they

basically decided to divide up the region between himselfs. and this -- between themselves. and this gets to the core historical controversy that continues to plague the region today. the difference between the promises made to the arabs in the mcmahon/hussein correspondence, and then the imperial dividing up that was in the sykes/picoult agreement. they never told french about the mcmahon/hussein correspondence. and for two years they very delicately and carefully created these walls of separation so no one would -- one side wouldn't find out about the other. and the man who brought it to an end was t.e. lawrence, better known to the world as lawrence

of arabia. i mean, so i'm now going to talk a little bit about lawrence, and if i can remember how to do this, i'm -- i have a few slides i was going to show you. hang on, what am i doing? >> [inaudible] >> yeah. can -- >> oh, i want to get rid of this, sorry. there we go. um, that's lawrence on the -- okay. i think i'm set now. all right. that's lawrence on the far left. why does it keep doing that? i think i should say no. lawrence was, he was -- in this picture he's 28 years old. as a young man, he was educated at oxford, he -- as an archaeologist. and he was many in 1909 -- he

was in 1909 he was fascinated by medieval european history, especially military history. and in 1909 at the age of 19, he went as part of his thesis at oxford, he went to syria and on his own, nobody with him, walked 1200 miles across syria making a tour of all the crusader councils. and that began this fascination, his lifelong fascination he had with the arab world and specifically with syria. a couple of years later he came back to syria as an archaeological dig in northern syria for the british museum, and he spent most of the four or five years leading up to the war in, it's a neolithic ruins right on the syrian/turkish border today. and during that time he developed, he'd only had an

instability affinity for arab culture, but he really studied it in a way very few westerners of the time had. he would -- the workmen on the archaeological site, he would, he would ask them about their families and about their clans, and he would take notes of what they were saying. and so he really came to appreciate the way arab society worked and the way that it was quite unique for a westerner at time. when -- sorry. when the or war came along, he was actually on a break from this archaeological dig, and he was back in england, and the war broke out. he was actually too short, he was 5-3. he was too short to enlist in the army, so he -- and the initial days of the war, this was before the ottomans had come into the war, he just took a job as, he was quite an expert at

cartography, so he took a job in the mapping department of british military headquarters. and a great story of how he actually became a military officer is that one day a senior general who was going off, and he was going to be a commander at one part of the western front in belgium came into the mapping room. he wanted to see the up-to-date maps of the battle front, and the only person there was lawrence who was a civilian. and the general was outraged that he was going to be briefed by a civilian. he demanded to be briefed by an officer, and lawrence was the only one there, so lawrence was bustled off to the army/navy store to get a uniform, and he was made a second lieutenant. so that was how he joined the british military. a couple months later the turks, the ottomans came into the war on the side of swrermny and austria/hung ally --

austria-hungary, and lawrence was brought on, he was taken to cairo to work for the military intelligence offices of the british army there. for the next two years, he basically sat behind a desk in cairo, argued again and again with position papers of what should be done in the arab world. more often than not, simply ignored. in the summer in june of 1916, the arab revolt finally started. and four months later -- almost as a lark -- lawrence accompanied a british, a political agent who was the main liaison between the british in cairo and hussein in arabia. lawrence accompanied him. he took a leave from his desk job, and he went over to jetta,

the main coastal city in arabia. he ip instantly and largely through just his own cunning managed toking make himself a key liaison to the arab rebels. and he specifically attached himself to one of hussein's other sons, faisal. let me see if i can -- this is kind of the landscape of where, where the fighting was taking place. this is the -- [inaudible] in southern jordan. but i just wanted to jump forward to show you that's faisal. faisal was hussein's third son, and he was,'s one of the chief -- he was one of the chief field commanders in the field. by late october of 1916 when

they first met, the revolt had really stagnated. they had control of mecca and jetta, the coastal city outside of mecca, and a few coastal towns. but they really had nothing -- they had no weaponry, no tactics to fight against, against the turks. and what lawrence did over the next several months was he attached himself to faisal, and he independently decided that faisal was the true prophet, the prophet of war. he was the true arab rebel commander. and rather anointed him as that. one thing that, how lawrence stood apart from the few other british officers who were on the arabian coast at the time beyond his knowledge of arab culture and spoke pass bl arabic, he was

fluent, but he doesn't have a very good accent, but because e had studied medieval military history in not so much the time of the crusades, but actually military history of europe, the military -- the wars in europe in the 14th century were actually very similar to how war was going to have to be waged in arabia. it's war at its most primal. you're going back to what decides who you attack and when you attack and where. it depends on where there's water. it depends on forage for your animals. it depends on your escape routes. so it's very basic stuff that was concern in the 14th century in europe, but were 20th century concerns in arabia. and so lawrence understood that about how to wage war there in the way that a true british officer who's trained in modern military tactics just really couldn't have grasped.

so he was uniquely, he was uniquely suited for this kind of war. but what he also did and what cemented the alliance between lawrence and faisal was he told faisal about the sykes/picoult agreement. he had only been in, at that time, he'd only been in arabia for about three months, and basically committed an act of treason by, i mean, you pass a military secret to a third party in wartime, that's almost the very definition of treason. and, but he did it. well, i mean, you can debate why he did it. on one hand, i think one of his defenses was that he knew better than, i mean, he wasn't -- you know, he wasn't a modest guy. he was rath arrogant. that -- rather arrogant. that he had a better idea of what the british needed to do in

the middle east than the british government sitting in london, and that their idea of partitioning up with the french the region after the war was going to lead to disaster. and it could also have been lawrence had always been fascinated with king arthur's court and the medieval pageantry. and it could have been just that he saw himself, he saw the chance to be this kind of knight errant and to deliver these people their freedom. but so he told, he told faisal about the existence of this treaty. and basically, what he said was don't believe in the promises of my country, because as things stand now, we're going to betray you. if the arabs are going to get anything at the end of the war, you're going to have to fight for it. you're going to have to fight for it every step of the way. for the next year and a half,

lawrence led, was one of the leaders of the arab rebels into battle. and while faisal knew about the sykes/picoult treaty, no other arab leaders did. so lawrence increasingly felt this incredible moral conflict between the men he was recruiting to fight for him and die for him were most likely going to be betrayed in the end. and as the war went on, he became more and more, i don't know, 'em bittered, shattered. he called himself a charlatan, a fraud because he was getting, he was getting people to fight and die for a cause that he knew was a lie. this was a -- lawrence was also a pretty amazing photographer. this was a photo he took when he first got to arabia, and it's of

the rebel camp in the early morning. i was just going to show -- and this was the rebel army on the move. you can't see it, but kind of right at the center is faisal leading the army, and lawrence was standing up on a little prommen story to take the picture. what both faisal and lawrence were also really brilliant at was understanding that to wage this -- because of the clan and tribal structure of war, well, of the society in arabia, to wage war it was this very complicated and very delicate negotiation process where you went to individual sheikhs and asked them for a certain number of men to fight. and it was all very local used because -- localized because each time they would go to a different region of arabia,

lawrence would have to recruit a new army because of the feuds and the blood vendettas that went on in different clans. all sorts of tribesmen, or he would forge peace between the two tribes to get them together. i mean, this was his experience in two years to try to cobble together forces to attack the turks. so he really understood this idea that in the post-or war world that the brits and the french were going to come in and just place these people in these artificial places, plus being put under christian and western control was kind of a recipe for disaster. one thing i was just going to point out, the three men in the white in front are actually probably slaves. they're probably faisal's immediate retinue. because there was still slavery

there at the time. >> [inaudible] >> oh, it is okay. i'm doing badly enough at this, i don't want to start doing badly at everything else. [laughter] this, right in the center, the man in white, that's faith faisal. and this is as they're going into battle. again, this is a photo that lawrence took. so it's very kind of a medieval scene of how, of just how war took place there. and this is lawrence on a camel. one of the -- it's quite amazing to think of most of the arab rebels were bedwomens, and none of them had ever seen airplanes before. they were terrified when the turks and germans started using airplanes. they had no idea what was happening. they were terrified of artillery. but also most had never seen a

blond, blue-eyed man before like lawrence. and so the idea that this 5-3 oxford scholar could show up and become a rebel leader, a battlefield commander is pretty astonishing. but one of the keys that enabled lawrence to do that was he had this incredible endurance. he had incredible stamina. he, and even from his early days when he was at the archaeological dig, locals would talk about how he had the stamina of a local. they always thought of westerners as pretty soft and weak. and just through force of will lawrence could ride a camel for 0 hours without a break. -- 30 hours without a break. i don't know if anyone here has been on a camel before, but i, unfortunately, have spent quite a bit of time on them. it's very -- until you get used to it, it's like riding on a metal rod.

their spine is right below the surface, so it's like a swaying metal rod. and it doesn't matter how good the saddle is, you feel that rod on your spine. and it's very hard to go -- i think the longest i've ever been able to go without a break is about four hours, and the idea of somebody doing it for 30 is pretty phenomenal. but, again, he was, and he also very quickly started wearing arab robes. and so that even from a psychological standpoint, i think, helped the people he was with to think of him as one of their own. this is, this is mark sykes. this is the man who not only was the co-author of the sykes/picoult treaty, but also one of the prime movers behind the ball fort declaration which was to encourage jewish immigration into palestine.

and his idea was, well, the palestinians will -- they'll have no problem with jews coming into palestine. everything will work out just fine. [laughter] and, again, encouraging jewish immigration in palestine at a time when as far as king hussein and the arabs knew, palestine had been promised to them. so, in fact, palestine -- the british kind of promised palestine to three different people. today promised it to the arabs, they promised it to the j is e -- jews, and they promised it to the french. this, talking about how this amazing ability of lawrence to sort of enter the inner circle of the leadership, that's faisal to the -- crouching down but the highest up, and that's lawrence on the far right with a wristwatch. and then two slaves in the

background. but he was operating inside the inner circle of the arab leadership. and this i just kind of put in because i just liked this picture. while lawrence and the rebels under faisal were striking the railway system in arabia and doing hit and run raids for turkish garrisons, the main british army was waging very much the sage war they were waging in europe against the ottoman army. and four different, huge offensives. the first four big battles in the middle east, the british army went up against an ottoman army that the ottomans in each one were extremely outnumbered, underfed, had antique weapons. this is the ottoman cavalry,

essentially, a unit of the ottoman cavalry. by the british insisting on these frontal attack systems, the first four battles they lost every time in battles where they outnumbered the turks 3 to 1. and again, you put even underfed, underpaid, demoralized men in trenches and give them machine guns, you know, it really doesn't matter what you do against them. and this was, again, something that lawrence was constantly arguing against. if i could figure out how to do it, i won't try it, but i was going to go back to the map of arabia. lawrence's greatest military achievement -- and it's one that

still today is studied at west point -- was his seizure of a town on the last turkish-held town on the red sea. and if you can envision the sinai peninsula, acaba stands at the very, kind of the crotch, the southeastern corner of the sinai. what was significant about acaba -- basically, what had happened with british naval help the rebels had managed to kind of leapfrog up the arabian coast and take one turkish garrison after the other. the problem with acaba was that it was a small town, it was the last syrian, last turkish military outpost on the red sea. but immediately behind it was this massive wall of mountains that extended for 60 miles. and so while the british and the arabs -- there was no problem

taking aacaba, but how do you advance behind that? you were going to be stuck on the beach, and the british had already had an experience of this when they tried to capture the turkish mainland and suffered a quarter of a l million casualties. so lawrence again and again counseled against it. he knew acaba, he'd been there before the war, but knowing the kind of idiocy which the british military had carried out everywhere else, the very unsuitability of trying to do an amphibious landing made it almost certain they would try. so what lawrence came up with was this plan to, basically, cut inland into the arabian desert and fall on acaba from behind, basically come over the mountains from behind. the turks had, there was the 30-mile gorge up to the top of the crest, and they had blockhouses and trench works and everything. it was going to be a disaster of

ever trying to climb up the gorge. but if you came at it from behind, everything was pointed the wrong way. so without any -- without ever telling my -- any british officer, lawrence just snuck away with just 45 followers and went on a 600-mile camel trek recruiting local arab fighters along the way. and fell on acaba from behind. i don't know if any of you have seen the movie "lawrence of arabia," but the capture is kind of a centerpiece of that. it's kind of the emotional high point of the movie. it took two months of crossing the desert and all these misadventures along the way, and he captured acaba. but the other reason -- it wasn't just a political, it wasn't just a military triumph, the capture. sorry, i meant to say this picture, again, it's a picture that lawrence took. it's of the day in the summer of

1917 when the arabs are charging into acaba to occupy it. but beyonding with a mill -- beyond being a military triumph, there was also a political component to capturing acaba that a lot of people don't know about. because it stood at the very top of the arabian peninsula, the british and the french thought if -- the french were desperate because they wanted syria after the war. they wanted the arab rebels nowhere near syria. they wanted to take syria in just this conventional, you know, straight ahead military campaign, and they wanted to actively keep the arab rebellion bottled up in arabia. so by taking acab which was the gateway into syria, if the british and french occupied it, they could then prevent the arabs from moving on. lawrence figured in this out.

and it's one of the reasons why he nebraska cleared his -- he never cleared his plan with any of his superiors. because he knew if he had said i have this idea how to take acaba, they would have vetoed it, because the british wanted to get there before the arabs. so this was, in a way, kind of a second act of -- i don't know if it meets the definition of treason, but basically what lawrence did by taking acaba is he was outflanking his own country, his own army, by taking the rebels and getting them there first. and then after taking acaba, he showed up a after a six-day camel ride across the sinai peninsula, he shows up in cairo, at the british military command in cairo, barefoot, emaciated. by the time he got there, his weight was down to something like 94 pounds. and he walks into the british commander's office and says i've just come from acaba, i took it.

and, again, if you've seen the movie, there's this great moment where -- this was going to be a major military occupation for the british and all these concerns about what kind of casualties they were going to have, and then this 5-3 waif shows up saying he's just captured it. and from acaba what, again, what lawrence did from a political standpoint is on the strength of this triumph he managed to marry the arab rebel cause to the british army. and he managed to convince the british commander that as they now advance into syria, that the arab rebels would act as their eastern component. and, again, this was this idea that lawrence had finish and you're now talking about -- and you now talking about late 1917, that this was the only way to steal away syria from the

french. especially if the arabs could get to damascus first as allies of the british, then they could steal away syria even though it had been promised to the french. so as lawrence became more and more obsessed with this idea of getting the arabs to damascus first, he became increasingly, well, almost -- i mean, almost demonic in battle. he would to into battle where he'd order, like, no prisoners to be taken. executed wounded enemy, and it's very clear he was basically kind of losing -- i put this picture in dispute. i love this picture. this is actually the turkish governor general of syria, a man named jamal pasha meeting with a bunch of arab sheikhs. in fact, the photography so

beautiful because it is done on the old glass negatives which are huge. you can just get with amazing image from that time. at one -- it really doesn't want to stay there. am i doing it fast enough? no. i'll hold my finger on it -- no. all right, well -- [laughter] i don't know why -- anyway, now it's just speeding up. >> [inaudible] >> once? okay, good. all right. that's lawrence in the middle. i talk about how he game increasingly demonic in battle,

he had this horrible experience where he was captured and severely tortured by the turks and probably raped. he only would ever refer to it, he'd kind of allude to it very euphemistically, but he was probably repeatedly raped. and so he established his own bodyguard. and this is lawrence standing in the middle, and he had a bodyguard of about 60 men who were to protect him. he was such a sort of a shrewd thinker that the men he surrounded himself with were all the outcasts and the troublemakers than the tribes of the rebels because by being outcasts, he realized their primary loyalty would be to him. and they were. and they fought to the death to protect lawrence through the end of the war. i believe -- at any one time i

think it was 45 or 50 men comprised the bodyguard, but over the course of the last year in the war as people -- there was the bodyguard they got killed, they would be replaced. but over 60 of his bodyguards were replaced by the end of the war. so in september of 1918, the british army and the arab rebels finally break through the ottoman lines, the turkish lines in syria, and they rout the turks. the turks are fleeing north towards the turkish heartland. lawrence and the rebels get to damascus first -- well, simultaneously. technically, they got to damascus first. so again, lawrence's great hope was that by having got there first they would be able to -- they can declare an arab

government and prevent the french from taking over. at, this is, this is faisal at a meeting with the british commander in chief of the whole war effort. this is actually a pretty amazing photo, or historic anyway. at this meeting, which was two days after lawrence and faisal had reached damascus, they, allenby, faisal and lawrence went into a room with only three other people at the hotel victoria in damascus, and allenby basically said syria's going to the french. and so he was, it was basically taken away from him. in this picture, it was taken

the same day. i found in the picture, this was actually taken on a balcony at the hotel victoria in damascus. this is just maybe 15 minutes, an hour after lawrence has heard the arabs are going to be betrayed after all. and so he had spent two years using, getting to damascus as a battle cry for the arabs, and the same -- actually, the next day, the next morning he left damascus in a british army car, and he never returned. and at one time before the or war had started, he had talked about how he felt syria was his new home and that he was happier in syria than he'd ever been in his entire life. and so with this experience, he actually never, ever came back.

what he did was he went to the paris peace conference. he went a as a liaison. that's lawrence just third from the right and faisal in the center, and he went as an adviser to faisal. and at paris first tried to appeal to the british government to stand by their word that they'd promised the arabs. that didn't work. he actually cut a deal with the head of the british zionist movement, weitzman, because he recognized that the balfort deck la that ration that was paving the way for jewish immigration into palestine and ultimately would lead to a jewish state, he realized the declaration was a fait accompli, so what he did was he had weitzman and faisal

meet, and they made an agreement between the jews and the arabs that in return for recognizing jewish primacy in palestine, the zionists would defend faisal's, the arabs' rights to claim of france. that didn't work. and then finally what they tried to do was to appeal to the americans. woodrow wilson had shown up in paris with all this talk of the age of imperialism is over, the age of secret deals was over and talking about the rights of self-determination for people. and it, unfortunately, it turned out that it was mostly just talk. right towards, as a way to kind of try to short circuit the british and french deal for the dividing up of the middle east, wilson sent this fact-finding

commission. you know, the great solution, let's form a committee. so he formed a committee that went to the middle east to find out what the people, the actual natives wanted. and so they sent this, it was called the king crane commission. they went out, and they spent three months polling people throughout syria and lebanon and palestine of what they wanted. and across every, across the entire spectrum of populations, christians, arabs, jews, sunni, shia, everybody -- nobody wanted either the british or the french. big surprise. they wanted either independence, or they wanted if they couldn't get independence, they wanted an american protect rate. they wanted an american mandate. but by the time the king crane commission got back to paris with this news, wilson was a spent force. and now he was just trying to get through his league of nations idea through a very

recalcitrant congress. plus he had never had any idea that he really wanted to do -- he certainly didn't want america to become the governor force of the middle east. so the king crane commission report that outlined all this was simply locked away in a vault, and it wasn't seen by anybody for three years. by which time the division of the middle east had gone forward. the british and french dividing it. what happened in paris with lawrence was he kept fighting to try to get his government to stand beside the promises made to faisal to the point where lawrence became a problem for the british government, and he was, he was simply stripped of any role at the peace talks. and made to, just placed in a barracks. actually forbidden, he was still in the military, forbidden to have any more contact with

faisal. so the betrayal went through. what happened almost instantly throughout the middle east with the partitions is that the place started to blow apart. and it was pretty much all carved up in 1919. by 1920 there was a full-scale revolt in iraq, there was independence riots in egypt, jewish settlers were being attacked in palestine, there was war in syria against the french occupation. and over the decades since, what you -- i think there's one more -- oh, okay. this was, this was the four big leaders at paris. so basically i what had happened

was before wilson got to paris lloyd george, the british prime minister on the far left and then george columnen sew on the second to the right, they had reaffirmed between the two of them in a five minute conversation they basically said, okay, what do you want, and i think columnen sow said what he wanted, and they basically said done. so they made this deal they were going to stand by each other and kind of shoot down wilson's ideas. this was one of the last pictures of lawrence that was taken in, i bereave, december -- i believe, december. december of 1934. he, for a couple of years after the war, he tried to stand by, he was involved a bit in trying to ameliorate the decisions that were made in the middle east.

and then he became, he rejoined the -- he wrote his great memoir "seven pillars of wisdom." but he changed his name and rejoined the british military as a private. and it's really interesting, by the time the or war was over -- the war was other, he was a lieutenant colonel. and yet he insisted on reenlisting as a private. and, again, under an assumed name. it was like he wanted to disappear sp. he spent most of the rest of his life as a recluse. it's very clear he had what we told would call ptsd, at the time was called shell shock. he had bouts of depression where he would contemplate suicide and lived, and finally had a small -- he was one of the most famous men in, certainly in england of the post-war, and yet he just, he bought a little

cottage down in the southwest coast of england, and when he was away from the barracks, he would just hole up there and read books and stuff. and this picture was taken about four months before he died. he was just leaving the military at this point. so he was just 46 years old. and when he finally, when he finally left the military, he wrote a note in may 1935 to a friend saying, i mean, he was really quite nervous of what he was going -- how he was going to spend the rest of his life. and he said, he said i feel like, i feel like the way a leaf must feel when it falls from a tree and is waiting to die. he said i hope this isn't my permanent condition. and then a week later, a week later after that note he had a motorcycle accident and was killed. just to -- oh, and then the very last photo, this is actually a

photo from -- it was taken two years ago in arabia. this is one of the trains that lawrence blew up out in the desert. so, um, just to kind of wrap things up, one of -- having spent so much time in the middle east over the last 20 years and thinking of how not just how you can, you can trace the historical or political lines of what's happening there today back to this time, but i think there's also an element of the personality of the place that i think what's happened ever since the partitions took place at the end of the war is that the arab world has tended to always see itself in terms of what it's opposed to.

anti- sorry, anti-imperial, obviously, but anti-zionist, anti-western, and anti-western can take so many different forms whether it's western music playing on the streets of cairo or women uncovered. and i think that so much of what you, of this collision course that we've seen play out certainly in your lifetimes and earlier really stems from kind of philosophical -- maybe not the right word, but this mindset that has really come to exist in that part of the world ever since that time. and the last thing i was going to say is i just, you know, i feel what we're seeing now -- and i wasn't, even six months ago i don't think this had occurred to me, but when we're looking at the region today and now looking at what's happening in syria but halls what's --

also what's already happened in libya and iraq is i think we're now seeing the final disintegration of these borders that were created almost 100 years ago. iraq today even though i don't know when the american government's going to admit it because we're still -- i think i the idea is still that we somehow liberated iraq and put it on the path to something, iraq today is essentially three countries. and it's three countries very much along the lines of the muslim, the ottoman provinces from a hundred years ago. the same thing is now happening in libya. libya is very rapidly becoming three countries. and, again, almost exactly on the same lines as the historical partitions under, the historical boundaries that existed under the ottomans. and i think that's probably where we're headed with syria.

and probably the last place it's going to go is jordan. so on that happy note -- [laughter] i'll just turn it over to questions. [applause] thank you. >> if you're going to ask a question, could you please identify yourself? please. >> [inaudible] i wanted to ask about the -- >> could you stand up? thank you. >> i wanted to ask about the face of the ott match empire if it had made a different decision. so do you think the ottoman empire could survive if they had joined the triple entente instead of the central powers? >> um, a good question. actually, the ottoman empire, at least a component of it, did try to join the triple entente.

the man i showed a picture of, jamal pasha, he was a francophile. he loved everything about the friend. and -- french. and that summer of 1914 he actually went to france and tried to get the french to accept the ottoman empire as an ally, and the french just brushed him off. it's a good question, it's a great what if of what would have happened. i'd often wondered what would have happened if the ottomans had just stayed out of it, what would have happened to them. i think -- i was talking about the system that the ottomans used and this idea, this idea of one of the weird strengths of the ottoman empire was its very lack of cohesion, its lack of any sort of central authority. and i think that just given modernity and the change in communication, the change if

interaction -- in interaction between people, railroads, ships, i mean, you know, airplanes had just started, but the world was rapidly becoming a much smaller place. and i have to think that almost anything the ottoman empire did, they were headed for serious trouble in the near future. as there are different component -- their different component parts of the empire came into increasing contact with each other. it's kind of a pessimistic view of human behavior, but coming into contact, also coming into collision. so i think that almost anything the ottomans did they were, their days were kind of numbered. i mean, what would have been -- if today had joined -- if they had joined, you know, at the very least what you might have seen in the middle east was as the ottoman empire broke up was that the nations that were created in its place would have some logic to them, would have

some, you know, ethnic or religious logic to them rather than just joined together because that's, that's what european mapmakers, the lines they drew. yeah. >> hi. i'm ethan finkelstein. i was wondering if you could comment on your analysis of the situation now and if there is any of this pan-arab nationalism that still exists that was promoted back in world war i, and if that is something that there are still large sects of arabs that still -- if a lot of arabs still are wanting something like that, wanting to have this, like, massive arab nation as opposed to just splitting off into these sectarian divides. >> yes, i think there is a

segment of the population that are still, this idea of pan-arabism, i think, is really quite strong. i have to say my first real experience of that, i spent quite a bit of time in cairo in '06, '07 when the war in iraq was particularly bloody -- and it's become particularly bloody again, but we don't read about it anymore -- and i remember talking to people, to egyptians, and they would talk about what had happened in iraq the day before. you know, a bombing that had killed 87 people or whatever. and it was very interesting. it was as if it had happened in egypt. i mean, it was clear that they had this personal connection even though they're egyptians. they had this personal connection to what was happening in iraq. and i do think it goes to this notion of, this pan-arab

identity that still exists. i have never seen that in another part of the world, you know? if something awful happens if brazil, there's not a lot of mourning about it in colombia or something in romania and denmark. so there is, i think, an identity. is it powerful enough to withstand all the forces of raid against it -- arrayed against it advocating separation, i mean, what you're seeing over and over and over again is people reverting back to clan and tribal lines or sectarian lines. i don't know. i mean, i suppose if a leader came along, if the arab world right now could produce a kind of a nasser type, i mean, it would be interesting if that could kind of stem the forces of disintegration that are happening everywhere. i'm not sure it would, but -- so

i'm kind of like waffling. [laughter] yeah. >> my name's -- [inaudible] in world conflicts previous the first world war that the u.s. had been involved in such as the spanish-american world, american businesses had a fairly heavy hand in driving u.s. foreign policy. however, at the treaty of versailles, the u.s. failed to -- [inaudible] why were companies like standard oil able to overcome that sentiment especially because as you discussed in the book, they had had interests in the region previously? >> right. um, i think by end of world war i the -- each when the americans -- even when the americans went into the war, the american people were by a pretty significant majority opposed to

the americans going into the war. so by the time the war was over, the idea that the americans, you know, wilson's idea that the americans would now take on this kind of international referee role, i think, was just a nonstarter from the beginning. certainly in congress, and he had a very hostile congress which he helped make even more hostile because he was a completely uncome uncompromising and rather or vindictive man, i just think, i think -- so the idea of like standard oil or somebody acting as a force to say, you know, the americans need a larger role in the world, i think it was just there was a tidal wave of returning to isolationism. and i think the benefits were just not readily apparent to americans at time. you know, it's funny, you always

think about oil, but even by the end of world war i you could see the handwriting on the wall of what oil was going to become. but it wasn't really there yet. it wasn't this strategic commodity that was going to utterly change the world. i mean, it was coming, but -- so i think the americans were just behind the times of what was coming. yeah. >> hi, my name's max, thanks for being here. i'm wondering if you can elaborate on the french-syrian relationship, for example, why the french were so keen about claiming syria as their protecta texas e and why not other areas of the middle east? >> going back to the 15th century, as i mentioned earlier, there was a really large

christian population especially in syria. armenians were orthodox christians and kind of had their own church, and their outside benefactor was russia. but for the catholics and the hernitis in syria -- lebanon today being a part of the greater syria at the time -- the french had extract from the ott marv empire a series of capitulations where the french were actually acting as the guarantors of the freedoms of the christian population inside the ottoman empire. and then once the french established this system, other european powers also demanded and got from the ottomans this whole system called the capitulations which is, which was just a bizarre system. oops, sorry. [laughter]

if you committed a crime, if you were a brit or a frenchman in syria and committed a crime, you can be tried by a turkish court. you would only be tried by your own country. so it made foreigners within the ottoman empire this, i mean, kind of the opposite of untouchables. this super class that could never be, that could kind of do whatever they wanted. but so because french had the special status and especially in syria, i think that's why they always saw syria as one of their jewels in the crown that they wanted to grab. plus at the time france was still a very catholic country, and so many of the crusades had originated in france. i think part of it was just, you know, it's 700 years later, let's finally, let's finally have a crusades where we actually win, you know? let's grab this place back from

the muslims. i think that was a big part of why especially in palestine of why they wanted to grab that area. and also contributing to it somewhat was the massacres of the armenians during the war. i mean, that helped stoke this idea that christians weren't -- i mean, however much you want to make it as the propaganda of why these countries needed to be taken away from the ottomans, that christians should never again be subjected to the risk of living under ottoman-muslim rule. yeah. >> hi, my name's kirsten, and first off, thank you for being here. >> my pleasure. >> my question is whether you could offer some insight into what drew lawrence's fascination or interest in the arab culture and people? it's highlighted in the book, that was very unique for a

westerner to have the views that he had, and i'm just interested in kind of the background of why that was. >> yeah. it's always a great mystery why a person develops a certain affinity for a different culture. you know, i think -- i don't know how much you all have traveled, but you meet people like this all around the world from all kinds of different backgrounds, and all of a sudden they go to tibet, or they go to india or guatemala or something, and they, and they just have this -- i'm not even sure they can even explain what it is, but they have this instant connection, this instant identity to a place. and almost kind of an instant understanding of the way that society works where to most outsiders it could seem very exotic and impenetrable. there are these people who it's like i don't know, a reincarnation of whatever it is. [laughter] it's like they just seem to know it. and i think lawrence was like

that. because it's, there wasn't finish it's interesting, it was a thing of his personality because, in fact, his personality was so non-arab. he had this revulsion of being touched. he'd avoid shaking hands. i mean, he hated being touched or embraced or anything. and then to go to an arab culture where it's incredibly physical, men are always kissing and holding hands and hugging and everything, and also at that time meals could go on for four or five hours, and there'd be all these people sitting around in a room. and this was very important, this was how armies were recruited and how decisions or were made of, like, where to attack next. and lawrence would sit in these meetings for five hours, but then this from a guy who prior to that prided himself on the fact that he would only eat standing up, and he prided himself that he could eat a

whole meal in, like, three minutes. sost like, you know, how did that person then become a guy lounging around on a rug for five hours? i don't really know the answer. [laughter] yeah. >> my name's roh roland. you talk about other characters in this whole middle eastern drama, and i was wondering what made you, what drew you to those specific characters in and the events they played and the role they played in the region? >> yeah. i got this idea that i wanted to write a book about lawrence because i'd always been fascinated by him, but there'd been so many books done on lawrence, at least 70 over the years, and what i didn't want to do was just kind of rehash what everybody else had done can. because even from a research standpoint after 70 books, there's really not much new to be discovered. in fact, there's nothing new to be discovered about lawrence. you're not going to find, you're

not going to go through the national archives in london and stumble atoss some trover -- across some trove of lawrence papers. but i also got to thinking of how do i expand that canvas. and then it occurred -- i had this epiphany about lawrence and why he was able to do what he did in the middle east. and this really is, i mean, it's the central riddle of lawrence's existence. ..

02 it. i thought if that was true of the british, the biggest imperial players in a region that must be true about the other empires also so i started looking around and found someone who was a few years older than lawrence, a scholar who had been attached to the german embassy in cairo for years and german counterintelligence, spymaster in syria during the war, jewish agronomist, i love the idea that so much history, i don't know if the middle east is unique in this, what is fascinating about this period is massive change came to this part of the

world's, so much was going to affect people who without titles or positions, junior officers, jewish agronomists, people who by force of personality and force of will gave themselves a role on this stage where dramatic things were happening and helped bring about change, wasn't about generals or kings but guys in a 20s and 30s. >> in the book you attribute success to his cultural familiarity with the region, travel structures, have you seen some more medals conducted in foreign policy in another part

of the world. >> i missed it toward the end. >> have you seen any similar models? >> sure. i think is always a question, if you went to almost any period you would find if you look at vietnam, there are americans in the 50s and 60s were warning the johnson administration of a disaster coming if americans continue to do what they are hearing. there are always people who have a grasp, always a question of do they just get overwhelmed by the

war hawks for the imperialists, just the massive voice in iraq, in the word iraq we have a lot of people in the george bush administration, american soldiers were not going to be treated as liberators, and the famous line you break it you own it, it by getting rid of saddam hussein the centrifugal force in this country that had been kept together largely through terror, the forces of disintegration were going to take over, and people who knew that, i don't think they got even a hearing from the george bush administration. there are always people out

there who do. xrt. >> i just wondered wondering how different you think the situation would have been if the middle east had been forged europe, had he not taken the reins in the initial part of the revolution? >> of lawrence had? if who had taken the reins? >> the reins of the revolution instead -- >> if lawrence had taken it? it never would have worked. warrants was never -- he never

had ideas himself of becoming a leader of the arabs. i think he always knew it had to be some arab leader that was going to unite them and overcome the sectarian divide. it was always an open question, with final --faisal he didn't regard the military commander but he did as a conciliator or someone who did bring tribes together. i don't think he ever imagined himself having a larger role wants the arabs had independence. >> we are going to put the whole thing on c-span for their presence, thanks for this portion of things. >> we would like to hear from

you. twitter.com/booktv. >> what works, traced through the narrative of a woman's life. exec girls and how we raise girls and what expectations we of society are putting on girls and young women that it was body image and how issues around body image are fundamentally different for women than men. look at sex which was a painful chapter to right, look at marriage, babies, housekeeping, workplace, aging, really trying to follow the arc of a woman's life. we don't have a lot of time so i want to touch on three issues captured in three chapters and a cousin them somewhat at random but i thought they might be nice to touch upon. the first is beauty and body image, the second is marriage and how it has and has not changed and the third is

housework which you might be a little young for but you can probably imagine it. let me start by talking about beauty. i will not argue too hard to convince people that we as a society still remain totally obsessed with women's bodies and with women's bodies as subjects of perfection and perfect ability. if you go back to any of the earlier feminist works, this was one of the most important themes, so stop the obsession with women's bodies and move beyond beauty as a standard to embrace other standards for women. does anyone in this room think we have pulled that off? if anything i would argue this pretty easily we have upped the ante for beauty as the standard by which women are evaluated so ago to rosie's at the corner,

pick up any women's magazine and what is it about? is about be. we now have a beauty standard that applies not just to women your age who have always been the archetypal beautiful, you are supposed to look like you are 22 until you are 92 so far as i can tell particular the -- you are not allowed to have a wrinkle, not allowed to gain weight, is supposed to or assumed to be beautiful throughout the entire course of her life. one of the things i do in the book, you may have seen the glamour peace, i counted up how long it takes me not to look like a model which i never will, but when i show up for work in the morning it takes a lot longer than it takes my husband and he uses a lot of hair product but even so that is all he has to do commack and if you think about what the standards are not for models the woman who is not lawyer or