Revolt in the Desert

Thomas Edward Lawrence was studying at Oxford when World War I broke out. Thanks to his knowledge of oriental languages, he was sent to Egypt, where he served at the headquarters of the British army in Cairo. There he proposed a crazy idea: to incite the nomadic tribes of the Arabian Peninsula to revolt against the Ottoman Empire, the enemy of Great Britain.

Over the next few years, Lawrence (who was later nicknamed the Arabian) traveled hundreds of kilometers on a camel, united warring tribes, took part in many risky raids and invented what would later be called “asymmetrical warfare”.

“Revolt in the Desert” is a memoir of the beauty of dunes and oases, of the southern starry sky, of the tents, ports and fortresses where this fantastic story unfolded more than a hundred years ago. And at the same time, it is a book about how adventure can achieve greater success than brute force, about how contagious an idea can be, about how one person can challenge a powerful empire - and win.