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

 

Summary (from the publisher): A marvelous tale of an adventurous life of great historical import

She has been called the female Lawrence of Arabia, which, while not inaccurate, fails to give Gertrude Bell her due. She was at one time the most powerful woman in the British a nation builder, the driving force behind the creation of modern-day Iraq. Born in 1868 into a world of privilege, Bell turned her back on Victorian society, choosing to read history at Oxford and going on to become an archaeologist, spy, Arabist, linguist, author (of Persian Pictures , The Desert and the Sown , and many other collections), poet, photographer, and legendary mountaineer (she took off her skirt and climbed the Alps in her underclothes).

She traveled the globe several times, but her passion was the desert, where she traveled with only her guns and her servants. Her vast knowledge of the region made her indispensable to the Cairo Intelligence Office of the British government during World War I. She advised the Viceroy of India; then, as an army major, she traveled to the front lines in Mesopotamia. There, she supported the creation 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.

Gertrude Bell, vividly told and impeccably researched by Georgina Howell, is a richly compelling portrait of a woman who transcended the restrictions of her class and times, and in so doing, created a remarkable and enduring legacy.

Review: Born into a privileged British family in 1868, Gertrude Bell went on to become a renowned traveler, author, mountain climber, and the driving force behind the creation of modern-day Iraq. In a Victorian era when most of her peers chose genteel lifestyles consumed by marriage and raising children, Gertrude instead became an archaeologist, mountaineer, world traveler, linguist, Arabist, and author. 

Gertrude Bell may very well be the most influential and remarkable historical figure that most people today have never heard of. She was born into immense wealth. Her grandfather was Sir Isaac Lowthian Bell, a metallurgical chemist and the country's foremost industrialist: "he produced one-third of the metal used in Britain and much of that used for railtrack and bridge construction in the rapidly developing Empire" (4). This work had made the family the "sixth-richest family in England" (9). Yet despite their great wealth, the family seems to have largely eschewed social prominence and instead were focused on good works and the value of their ventures. 

I had no idea going into this book that she was one of the most prominent women climbers during her day. She had multiple achievements despite it being a relatively brief blip in her life; she climbed for only five seasons before moving on to other hobbies. For twenty-five years after successfully scaling Finsteraarhorn, the highest mountain in the Oberland, "it would be regarded as one of the greatest expeditions in the history of Alpine climbing" (87). And this from a woman for whom the whole venture was just a passing fad in the end!

After her climbing days were over, she moved on to explorations of the Arabian desert. "Taken together, her journeys encompassed more of Syria, Turkey, and Mesopotamia - roughly, the broad territory containing Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul. She covered more than ten thousand miles on the map, but she went over hills and mountains, searched for foods, and took detours to ancient sites to make contact with sheikhs. Over six hundred days she must have journeyed at least twenty thousand miles in the saddle" (111). The result of these journeys was a book published in 1909 that is "still the standard work on early Byzantine architecture in Anatolia. The reward, for Gertrude, was a prestige and credibility in the world of archaeology that she could have gained in no other way without years of study, and that many archaeologists would envy" (127). 

Later, in the first world war, she took charge of the massively unorganized lists of missing soldiers in France and worked tirelessly to produce a new way of doing things and a database to create order. From there, she moved to modern-day Iraq, where she would spend the final years of her life, using her knowledge and language skills from her time in the desert to help organize and pressure for the unification of Iraq. Her top choice for the job, Amir Faisal, was crowned king and was close friends with Gertrude until her death. 

Despite her immense accomplishments, Gertrude was unlucky in her love life. Despite loving children and falling in love several times, she never married or had children of her own. However, she was incredibly close to her father, stepmother, and siblings all of her life. 

I was sort of blindsided by what felt like a very abrupt end to this biography. I guess I wanted more attention or insight paid to the circumstances of her death and also what happened to her family after her death. Instead, the novel quickly closes with an incredibly maudlin depiction of all the places Gertrude loved and worked decaying and falling into disuse after her untimely death. 

Stars: 4