Is there anything new to be said about T.E. Lawrence? I mean, really. In the century since his stirring exploits in the Arabian desert we have had all manner of biographies, from simpering hagiography to heartless hatchet job. We have had Lawrence the colonial hero and faithful imperial servant; Lawrence the linguist, explorer and spy, pioneer of guerrilla warfare; Lawrence the Machiavellian betrayer of the Arabs; Lawrence the preening, self-mythologising sado-masochist. Each generation projects its own prejudices and visions, fears and fantasies upon this unusual man.
Even now, 80 years after his death, the torrent of biographies shows little sign of abating. In recent years we have had studies by Lawrence James (2008), John Hulsman (2009), Michael Korda (2010), Scott Anderson (2013), Anthony Sattin (2014), Andrew Norman (2014) and Bruce Leigh (2014). We now know so much about his life that its many waypoints have become well-churned quagmires of debate.
Was he buggered at Deraa by Turkish forces, for example, as he famously claimed? Lawrence put the rape charge more delicately, writing that he had irrevocably lost the ‘citadel of my integrity’.
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