Gertrude Bell Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations

Len's Summary: Biography of a British “Arabist,” a contemporary of T. E. Lawrence who also worked with British intelligence in Cairo during WWI and lived after the war in Baghdad, her favorite city. A History Book Club selection for 2007. Favorably reviewed in the June 2007 Atlantic. This is the women who outlined Iraq’s borders and drafted its first constitution. See also Desert Queen, Janet Wallach, Doubleday, 1996, now in paperback from Knopf, 464 pages, ISBN 1 40009 619 7, $15.95.