Finalist for the 2014 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography One of the Best Books of the Year‎:‎ ‎"‎The Christian Science Monitor NPR The Seattle Times St‎.‎ Louis Post‎-Dispatch Chicago Tribune‎"‎ A ‎"‎New York Times‎"‎ Notable Book The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War I was‎,‎ in the words of T‎.‎ E‎.‎ Lawrence‎,‎ a sideshow of a sideshow‎.‎ As a result‎,‎ the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low‎-level officers far removed from the corridors of power‎.‎ At the center of it all was Lawrence himself‎.‎In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in Syria‎,‎ by 1917 he was riding into legend at the head of an Arab army as he fought a rearguard action against his own government and its imperial ambitions‎.‎ Based on four years of intensive primary document research‎,‎ ‎"‎Lawrence in Arabia‎"‎ definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed‎.‎ ‎"‎