Moses And The Doctor: Two Men, One Championship, And The Birth Of Modern Basketball, Epplin - B

          Julius Erving made a splash in Hempstead, UMass, and Rucker Park, but he was still relatively unknown when he signed with the Virginia Squires in 1971 after his junior year in college. His talent and ambition were otherworldly, and he took the ABA by storm.  A few years later, a young Petersburg prodigy, Moses Malone, was considering skipping college and heading straight to the ABA. He shocked America by signing a million-dollar contract with the Utah Stars in 1974 right out of high school.

          Julius Erving desired to be more than an outstanding athlete; he wanted to be a role model in the mold of Jackie Robinson and Bill Russell. On the court he was “bold and fearless,” and off it he became “a dignified and accessible ambassador” for the ABA. In contrast to the league’s charming and articulate face, the new 19-year-old rookie Moses Malone barely spoke to the press.

           In the ABA’s final season, Dr. J stole the show at the Dunk Contest, won the MVP award, and led his team past Denver in the finals. When the new NBA season began, Julius was in Philadelphia and Moses in Houston. Both men had excellent years and faced each other in the Eastern Conference Finals, which Philly won in six games. Most observers viewed the NBA Finals against Portland as a clash between the undisciplined and erratic 76ers and a brilliantly structured and focused Blazers. The better-coached Blazers won in six.

          In Houston, Moses’ relentless work ethic earned him the 1979 MVP award. He pulled down 587 offensive rebounds — a number no one has come within fifty of in nearly half a century.

          After Philly flailed for a few years, an unhappy Julius Erving embraced religion and pared down his Afro. Approaching thirty, with creaky knees, he had decided he needed a reboot. The 76ers entered the 1979–80 season with team-oriented players like Bobby Jones and Mo Cheeks, now coached by Billy Cunningham. Julius had his best season since the ABA days. They beat the Celtics in the conference finals and met the Lakers for the title. Magic Johnson made history in Game 6 when he started at center and demolished Philadelphia. 

          The 1980–81 season saw Julius win the MVP award. In the conference finals he wore himself out guarding the younger Larry Bird, and the Sixers blew a 3–1 series lead, allowing Boston to reach the Finals, where they whipped Houston.

          The following year Moses won another MVP, but the Rockets’ owner had died and Malone knew he would soon become a free agent. Philadelphia beat Boston but lost to the Lakers in the Finals. For the first time since his brother’s death years earlier, Julius Erving sat in the locker room and cried.

           The Sixers knew they needed rebounding help, and were fed up with Daryl Dawkins. That summer, owner Harold Katz traded Daryl, and offered Malone a six-year, $13.2 million contract and changed the balance of power in the NBA.

          Moses deferred completely to Doc, pounded the boards, and suddenly the Sixers were beating everyone, including Boston and Los Angeles. Malone’s lack of artistry and relentless effort endeared him to Philly’s blue-collar fan base. His “metronomic reliability steadied a team prone to losing its bearings under duress.” The Sixers started 50–7 before stumbling home at 15–10. Moses was battling serious knee pain and missing games.

            A few days before the playoffs began, Moses had fluid drained from his knee and then overpowered the Knicks in the opener. It was a sweep, during which Moses scored 79 more points and grabbed 29 more rebounds than Bill Cartwright. Philadelphia then beat the Bucks in five before facing the Lakers in the Finals.

           Philly won the first two games at home, with Moses leaning on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar both nights, and took Game 3 when Malone held Kareem scoreless in the second and third quarters. Doc scored the final three baskets in Game 4 to complete the sweep. The Sixers were on top of the world.

          They flopped the following year. The nation’s attention shifted to three straight Lakers-Celtics Finals, and Philadelphia simply fell apart. The owner turned mean-spirited and traded Moses away, while Andrew Toney’s career was shortened because the team ignored his foot problems. Billy Cunningham retired with the highest winning percentage of any coach in NBA history. Doc retired in 1987. Moses played until 1995 and became the last ABA player in the league. He was one of only seven men to win three MVP awards, and Dr. J remains one of only nine men to score 30,000 professional points.

         Gotta just love Julius Erving - incredible skills and a total class act. Philly - not at all.          

Ironwood, Connelly - B+

          This is the second Catalina Island novel featuring Det. Stilwell. Stil loses two deputies in a shootout during a drug bust gone sideways at the island airport late at night. He captures one of the bad guys, but two fake ICE agents release him from jail. His suspicions run deep, and the eventual resolution ruins the careers of many important people in the LA area. He also teams up with Renee Ballard's cold case team to put another very bad man behind bars.

        Michael Connelly remains as sharp, insightful, and flat-out brilliant as he was with the first Bosch novel in 1992.

The Heart Of Europe: The Past In Poland's Present, Davies - B -

         Norman Davies is one of his generation’s most acclaimed and prolific historians. His specialty is Central Europe, with an occasional dalliance into his native England. I’m certain I’ve read three of his books, and possibly as many as five. He wrote a 1,000+ page, two-volume history of Poland in 1981 that was abridged to just under 500 pages a few years later. This is the 2001 edition of that abridgment. The story is not told in chronological order.

         Poland’s communist dictatorship was forcibly imposed by the USSR. There weren’t enough communists in Poland to run a factory, never mind a country in 1944. It was another example of alien-imposed tyranny, a Stalinist creation that lasted until 1989. However, it was never as extreme, violent, or brutal as it had been in the USSR. The Catholic Church was too strong and too deeply rooted to be oppressed completely. There were modicums of both political and economic flexibility, unlike anything in the USSR. The visit home by the newly elected Polish Pope in 1979 was psychologically uplifting and easily led to Solidarity’s rise and successful strike the following year. The regime responded with Jaruzelski’s martial law in December 1981. The suppression that followed was severe, and the economy continued its downward spiral. After almost four decades of Soviet domination, Poles stood in line for bread, their country was bankrupt, and a donee of foreign beneficence. “The essence of Poland’s modern experience was humiliation” at the behest of the Soviets.

         The only European country whose war lasted as long as Poland’s was Germany’s. For 2,078 days, the Poles fought, died, and hoped for a restoration of their freedom. “In proportion to its size, Poland incurred far more damage and casualties than any country on earth.” The two occupying powers of 1939 murdered the leadership class of the country, the Germans put the Jews in ghettos, the Soviets deported two million people to Siberia, and the Soviets murdered 4,500 Polish officers at Katyn. After Barbarossa, western Poland became the home of the camps, where nine to ten million people, half of them Jewish, were killed. When the tide turned, Poles were happy to be rid of the Germans, but deeply anxious about the Soviets. The Soviets brought their own ready-to-go Polish government with them in 1944. For two years after the war, Polish patriots flailed at the Soviet occupiers before they were defeated. When it was all over, Poland had lost significant lands to the east, eighteen percent of its population, and all for naught. They had sacrificed, fought long and hard, and were back under the Russian heel.

         When the Great War began, Poland did not exist. Ethnic Polish men were drafted into the armies of the three empires that had partitioned their country. Polish independence was adopted as an Allied war aim. By the end of the war, the lands that would become Poland were devastated and had lost fifteen percent of their population. The Second Polish Republic was created by the Treaty of Versailles and six border wars fought by the Poles. The two-year, far-ranging war with the Soviet Union saw the Red Army suffer its only defeat, and Marshal Pilsudski became a true national hero. Forming a reborn republic on the ruins of war was no easy task, and in 1926 Pilsudski took over after a military coup. The country was economically stable, the population grew, and Pilsudski tried to steer between and away from Germany and the USSR. After his 1935 death, his successors watched as Germany took over the Rhineland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia. The frail Second Republic was “foully murdered by two assailants acting in collusion.” The years between 1918 and 1939 would prove to be fondly remembered as the only ones between 1795 and 1989 in which Poles lived in freedom.

         The Polish republic was destroyed in 1795. “The overwhelming experience for all Poles during five long generations was one of foreign rule and political oppression.” Polish culture, language, and aspirations survived, and “When the world of the empires fell apart, the Polish idea of nation proved sufficiently mature to seize its destiny.”

         Freedom arrived almost miraculously as “a country of forty million had extracted itself from the communist morass with no violence and with relatively few conflicts.” Massive amounts of foreign debt and a moribund economy offered Jaruzelski limited elbow room to save Polish communism. Lech Walesa, while in prison, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, further diminishing the regime. In early 1989, the government began negotiations with Solidarity. The sides agreed to reverse martial law, legalize Solidarity, and allow free elections. Solidarity swept the elections, and Gorbachev announced that the Soviets would not interfere in Poland’s internal affairs. While the rest of the Eastern Bloc collapsed, Poland remained calm. Jaruzelski still controlled the army and the police, but a free market economy was emerging. In nationwide elections, the communists were swept into the dustbin of history, and Lech Walesa became president. Poland was free.

Spies and Other Gods, Wolff - C

             This novel features a senescent head of MI6 going back into the field and not doing too well. Reviewers seem to like the way it explores the institutional roles that support agents in the field, along with how boring and full of dead ends spying can be. There’s also some nice insight into inter-European bureaucratic infighting, but for me, it’s simply befuddling.

Bloody Crowns: A New History Of The Hundred Years War, Livingston - B

         "We may think of the Hundred Years War as a fight between two crowns, but the reality is much larger, much more complicated and infinitely more interesting. These years of conflict drove enormous leaps forward in military technology and organization. They helped build political systems and national identities. They forged the myths and fundamentally shaped multiple modern states. Few periods in history have done so much to create our world." The era is best seen as "a sequence of steps in France's struggle to define itself."

         Before the beginning of what the author refers to as the Two Hundred Years War, the Capetians and Plantagenets fought for about a century over the English monarch's claims in France. The fighting ended, and the English king, at least on the continent, was a vassal of France. The only meaningful holding that England retained was Gascony, a province along the Pyrenees border with Spain.

          In 1292, pirates began fighting in the Channel, and Philippe V escalated matters by announcing Gascony was forfeit to France. A decade of fighting led to a truce in 1303. The early years of the new century saw continuing tension between the two crowns as Edward refused to pay homage for Gascony. The English queen placed her fourteen-year-old son Edward on the throne and dispensed with her husband. Edward III would reign for fifty years. In 1328, Philippe VI became the first Valois monarch. Two years later, Edward reached his majority and took full control in England. In 1337, the traditional start of the Hundred Years War, Edward renounced his oaths to Philippe.

          In 1346, Edward launched one of England's greatest campaigns, Crecy. He landed in Normandy in early July, sacked Caen, and was trapped and outnumbered at Crecy in late August. The French charged into a line of English longbowmen and were slaughtered. It was a complete and total victory. A year later, France surrendered Calais after a lengthy siege.

         The following year, the most devastating onslaught of the Black Death rampaged across the continent. Somewhere between one-third and one-half of the continent's people died. After a pause, hostilities continued. The Black Prince, Edward's son, spent two summers wreaking havoc through the south of France and, when the French pursued, prevailed at Poitiers while capturing the king. It was another battle where the longbow defeated a superior French force.

         France was in chaos but refused to agree to the deal its captured king accepted. Edward and his son marched from Calais to Paris. The walls could not be breached. The peace that followed expanded the province of Gascony and assured that it was English land. No more would an English king, as Duke of Gascony, need to kneel to the French monarch.

          Charles V succeeded his father in 1364 and began a decade-long reversal of all that England had accomplished in the war. He slowly and methodically pushed back against the English and also defeated them when they tried to intervene in a Spanish succession conflict. By 1380, Calais was all that England held on the continent. Both Edward III and the Black Prince died, leaving ten-year-old Richard II on the throne, while in France Charles too passed away. He was succeeded by an eleven-year-old. Both sides were under tremendous financial strain and agreed to terms in 1389.

         As Richard came of age, he struggled to gain and maintain control. He disinherited a cousin, Henry of Bolingbroke, who defeated him and became Henry IV. France went through decades of turmoil brought on by the madness of Charles VI and the ensuing succession crisis.

         Henry V reinitiated the war in 1415. His first, and most memorable, success was at Agincourt on October 25th, St. Crispin's Day. Badly outnumbered, the English center settled in with their spears pointed forward, flanked by the ever-effective longbowmen. It was a slaughter that eviscerated France's nobility. Henry conquered Normandy and, under the terms of the treaty, married Catherine of Valois. Once again, sons of an English king married to a French princess would be contenders for France's throne.

         However, fate intervened, as Henry died leaving a four-year-old son. During a long truce, Charles VII regrouped and defeated the English, eventually evicting them from France in the fall of 1453. This generally is considered the end of the war, but as the author points out that no one knew it at the time. Defeat in France left England on the cusp of the Wars of the Roses. As England descended into civil war, France reinforced its western lands. Henry VII made an attempt to invade but failed and signed the Peace of Étaples in 1492, renouncing any claims in France.

         The war changed both countries, as they now had vastly superior methods of collecting taxes and maintained standing armies. Parliament was strengthened in England. The French hailed their victory, and the English remembered the three great battles they won. Each country began to look beyond its borders.  "Thus the Two Hundred Years War gave birth to England and France as we know them. It gave birth to our world."

Only Way Out, Goldberg - B

          In a loser town on the Oregon coast, its leading loser is a crooked cop, Jack, who stumbles upon the opportunity of a lifetime. He checks out a van that went over a cliff and finds a dead man, Robert, along with millions in cash and other goodies. The driver had just ripped off the law firm where he supervised clients' private safe deposit boxes. Jack dismembers the body and destroys the van. Every now and then, he uses something from his stash to bribe someone, while the law firm and many others continue to believe Robert is still out there.

          Decades later, however, Robert's sister, Penny, and Mitch, who now has Robert's old job and is also a crook, think otherwise. They believe someone in town — likely Jack — has been gaming the system and that Robert has long been dead. This is a fun dive into a world of grifters, con men, thieves, and miscreants of every variety.

The Rolling Stones: A Biography, Spitz - B+

        This story is very well known, but what the heck, I love these guys.

        In October 1961, Keith and Mick start talking on a train into London about their love of the blues. Keith was fascinated by the records Mick was carrying, and Mick was amazed when Keith said he could play Chuck Berry’s licks. They were soon huddled over records with Mick singing and Keith playing guitar. About the same time, Brian Jones came to London to form a band with his mate, Ian Stewart. They met Mick and Keith at the Ealing Blues Club, and Ian told Brian, “Mick can’t sing to save his fuckin’ life,” but it was obvious he was going places. When the four of them began to look for work, someone asked them their name — Brian responded, the Rollin’ Stones. They started to play gigs in jazz clubs that were offended by the rock ’n’ roll side of the group, and they still needed a drummer and a bass player. With an older Bill Wyman playing bass, they started to draw crowds and generate enthusiasm around London. They finally landed Charlie Watts.

          Brian, Keith, Mick, Stu, Bill, and Charlie were now a band. They believed they were on the cusp of something, and then came the Beatles. They would stick to their blues-based rock ’n’ roll to compete. The Stones landed a regular Sunday gig and began to draw crowds that loved to dance to their music. One Sunday in April 1963, the Beatles came in to listen and were blown away. They soon had a 19-year-old manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, and a deal with Decca. Because of his older, hangdog look, Stu was demoted to session musician and road manager. As 1963 closed, Brian’s demons were getting the better of him, and he was slowly separating from the group. More importantly, Andrew told Keith and Mick they had to write their own songs. They finally delivered “Not Fade Away.” Oldham pushed the bad-boy image and got them a US tour.

          The tour was a bust, with only one good night — 2,600 happy, screaming fans at Carnegie Hall. Upon their return home, they released “It’s All Over Now.” They came back to the US in October on the heels of “Time Is on My Side” and nailed a performance on Ed Sullivan. The following spring of 1965, they recorded “The Last Time” and “Play With Fire.” “Satisfaction” followed, and “it would become the most iconic riff in the history of rock ’n’ roll, as identifiable as the opening of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.” As the band ascended, Brian fell deeper into abusive drug use and further separated from the group. That summer, they brought in Allen Klein to improve their record deal and released “Get Off of My Cloud.” By the end of the year, the Stones were stars whose concerts were wildly rowdy. Mick and Keith kept writing, and Allen Klein was filching most of the royalties.

          The following year, one of London’s tabloids decided to put two investigative reporters on the Stones. They tipped off the police, who raided a party at Brian’s house on Feb. 11, 1967. Just before they took off on a European tour, Mick and Keith were summoned to appear in court in May. Brian was busted later that spring. At their trial, Keith was sentenced to a year and Mick to three months. Public reaction, even including The Times, was vehemently opposed to the mistreatment of Mick and Keith over absurdly minimal offenses. On appeal, Keith’s case was dismissed and Mick’s deferred. They had dodged a bullet. They were fed up with Oldham, who was equally unhappy and quit. To finish up an unsatisfactory year, Their Satanic Majesties Request flopped.

They opened the new year with Mick beginning to run the business and a new producer in place. “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” and “Street Fighting Man” erupted, and in June they laid down “Sympathy for the Devil.” They released Beggars Banquet, and everyone just loved it. Over the Christmas holiday, Keith and Mick took a trip together and did some serious thinking about the future. They had to get rid of Brian, who had just been convicted of a serious crime. And they had to dump Klein, whom they figured out was stealing them blind. They were on top of the world, and they were broke.

        Back in the studio in early 1969, they produced “Gimme Shelter,” “Honky Tonk Women,” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” They picked Mick Taylor to replace Brian, and Charlie, Mick, and Keith broke the news to Brian, who seemed to accept it. Soon thereafter, though, Brian was dead. Two days later, the band played in public for the first time in two-and-a-half years. They went to LA and prepared for a US tour. They started on Nov. 7 and were ready for the tag many were using — The Greatest Rock ’n’ Roll Band in the World. The tour was a resounding success, with the band developing a show that would carry them around the world for decades. 

         They had agreed to do a free show and went to Altamont, which featured “masses of angry, drug-addled kids.” Security would be provided by the Hells Angels in exchange for $500 worth of beer. The place was a dump, the Angels were using every drug they could find, and in the madhouse they killed a man. The Stones were lucky to escape in a helicopter. Everyone blamed them, and they left the country immediately.

          They looked forward to 1970, a new record deal, and decamping to France to avoid Britain’s taxes. They got the record deal they wanted with Atlantic and convinced France to let them in. The only real fly in the ointment was that Keith was so addicted to heroin and coke that he could barely function. Through a haze of drugs and daily chaos, they created Exile on Main St., a double album released in 1972. The following tour was a much-heralded success. However, they were still fighting with Allen Klein, facing endless drug busts and legal problems, and Keith’s addictions ran rampant. He and Mick were no longer the Glimmer Twins — they were barely speaking and certainly not writing. Mick Taylor got fed up and quit. He was replaced by Ronnie Wood.

         As they prepared for their 1975 US tour, the Stones opted for special effects, turning their monstrous concerts into spectacles. The band rolled on until Keith was in such bad shape that he was arrested for trafficking in Toronto. He had to clean himself up or the band might not be able to renew its record deal or tour again.  He did, for a while.

         In 1982, the band celebrated its 20th anniversary. At this stage, though, they were primarily a performing band. Their music was simply not as impactful as it once was. Soon thereafter, they were falling apart — sniping, fighting, doing solo work, and unable to keep it together. They made an album that Mick decided was not even worth touring behind. Ian Stewart, the foundation of the whole group, died of a heart attack. By the end of the ’80s, the Stones were no more. At their lowest point, one of their financial advisers observed, “The way you make money is as a band. You      have to do group work. This is what the world wants from you.”

         Mick and Keith got together in 1989 and settled their differences. They cranked out the Steel Wheels album in just five weeks in Barbados and were heading out on tour for the first time in eight years. Mick came up with an eight-story, $18 million stage. They reconnected with their audience and with each other. Keith said, “If we made it through the ’80s, we can go on forever.”

         They toured into the ’90s, and no one could unseat them. Bill Wyman withdrew, and they brought in Daryl Jones. They went out on a yearlong tour beginning in the summer of 1994 and grossed $320 million. They have toured ever since, most recently in 2024, although Charlie had to step away in 2019. They opened the Hackney Diamonds tour at SoFi in LA and brought the house down sixty years after their first California gig.

         It has been speculated that they have been seen in person by almost a billion people. They all left smiling and singing the songs of the Greatest Rock ’n’ Roll Band in the World.

The Hidden City, Finch - B-

             In late 1879, Charles Lenox, London’s first private detective, heads to Portsmouth to meet a ship arriving from India. For the first time, he meets Angela, the fourteen-year-old daughter of his late first cousin, along with her Indian maid, Sari. He brings them to his home, where his wife and daughter welcome them. Simultaneously, he begins investigating a case concerning his childhood nanny. The case involving Mrs. Huggins leads in several different directions and immerses Lenox in London’s depraved criminal world. The strength of this series lies in its detailed insights into, and assessments of, London and the UK during Victoria’s reign.

Sherlock Holmes and The Real Thing, Meyer - B+

            Holmes is approached by the recently widowed Lady Glendenning, who is trying to manage her late husband's London leasing business. She asks Holmes to look into a tenant who hasn't paid in three months. Holmes investigates the studio of the missing painter and finds blood spatter on the floor mixed with paint. The man specializes in portraits, preferably of good-looking ladies. It has been a particularly snowy winter, and as it melts, the painter's body is found. Although Lady Glendenning pays Holmes, he continues to pursue the case to its complex and stunning conclusion. The accomplished author has created a perfect setting in 1890s London and filled it with a Sherlock very much at the top of his game.

Devil In A Blue Dress, Mosley - B

         This first book in the Easy Rawlins series is set in postwar LA in 1947. Out of work with a mortgage payment looming, he accepts $100 to look for a good-looking blonde white woman known to frequent bars in Watts. The request and payment are made by a wealthy, elusive white man. And off we go through a dazzling cast of characters and charlatans. By the time it's all over, Easy, his lifelong buddy Mouse, and the stunning white woman all walk away with a pretty penny. This is a brilliant exposition of Black LA long ago.

Lawrence In Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East, Anderson - B +, Con't.

          This is a continuation of the March 6th blog on the first portion of this book.

          Lawrence arrived at Faisal's camp in December 1916. Now dressed in the white robes of a sheikh at his host's suggestion, he took up residence among the Arabs. In January, when Lawrence's position as liaison was made permanent at Faisal's request, he knew he was now in a position to "remake the war in Arabia in his own image." Some in Cairo wanted to see Aqaba—a port strategically placed at the northern end of the Red Sea's eastern prong—taken from the sea in an amphibious landing. Had they succeeded, the Allies could have prevented the Arabs from attacking the Hejaz Railway and advancing into Syria. Lawrence took a very dangerous step and informed Faisal of the Sykes-Picot Treaty, in which the Allies agreed to divide the Middle East and exclude the Arabs from a meaningful role. Lawrence and Faisal began to plan an attack to the north, inland and away from Allied interference. Lawrence came to understand that the road to Arab success lay in using the vast desert and its mountainous terrain to their advantage, prosecuting a guerrilla war. He also began to see the advantages of approaching Aqaba from the desert and occupying the city before the Allies arrived from the sea.

          In the spring of 1917, Lawrence met Auda, chief of the Howeitat. He was a formidable desert warrior, and Lawrence realized that with Auda he could take Aqaba. The fact that his superior officer indicated that Britain did not wish the Arabs to take the city gave Lawrence pause, but did not stop him. At this point, knowing full well the treachery the Allies intended, Lawrence resolved to lead an Arab revolt into Syria and attempt to thwart both Britain and France. While he and Auda rode east and fought a handful of hard-fought skirmishes along the way, he also orchestrated the Arab uprising in southern Syria. The Turks surrendered Aqaba on July 6, 1917. Knowing supplies were desperately needed, Lawrence rode 150 miles to the Suez Canal to notify Cairo immediately.

        Lawrence was hailed as a conquering hero, nominated for the Victoria Cross, made a Commander of the Order of the Bath, and promoted to major. He convinced the new commander, General Allenby, to support his thrust north into Syria, coordinated with a British army attack through Palestine. Working with Allenby would prove a challenge. When Allenby explained his tactical plan, the only thing Lawrence could think about was a small raid on a railway bridge. Meanwhile, his Arabs sat in Aqaba, growing restless while waiting for a chance to attack Syria. Allenby's campaign into Palestine succeeded, while Lawrence's efforts did not. He sent a messenger to Hussein in Aqaba telling him to come north. On his way west, he was captured and likely raped and tortured by a Turkish commander. His accounts over the years were inconsistent, leaving uncertainty about what exactly happened. His colleagues, however, were convinced that he became more remote and increasingly ruthless in his pursuit of revenge against the enemy.

        Late in 1917, Arab enthusiasm for Britain's efforts in the region began to fade. There was growing disillusionment over the Balfour Declaration*, and the Turks made public the terms of the Sykes-Picot Treaty.

         In January, on his way to meet Allenby, Lawrence led the defense of a small town under Turkish attack. He managed it so effectively that he was awarded the DSO, having inflicted casualties—killed, wounded, or captured—at ten times his own losses. He was promoted to colonel. That spring, both Allenby's offensive and an Arab attack in the desert failed. To make matters worse, Britain recalled thousands of Allenby's troops to reinforce the BEF in France, forcing him into a defensive posture. When Lawrence learned that Allenby was dissolving his camel corps, he requested—and received—its camels. With that added mobility, the Arabs would be able to attack Syria without British assistance.

         Soon, however, Allenby received a substantial number of Indian troops and resumed the offensive. He tasked Lawrence and the Arabs with destroying the railways around Deraa to isolate the Turks from reinforcements and supplies. They achieved all their objectives, and Lawrence was particularly proud of having destroyed his seventy-ninth bridge. Allenby's offensive was a complete success, and if the railways around Deraa remained severed, Turkish forces would be encircled. The British repeatedly instructed Lawrence that under no circumstances were the Arabs to reach Damascus first. The Arabs rendered the railways  unusable. Allenby then reversed course and allowed the Arabs to take Damascus. Lawrence and Faisal entered the famed city, where Lawrence appointed an Arab governor and briefly held authority.

         On October 3, Allenby, Faisal, and their staffs met, with Lawrence serving as interpreter. Following instructions from London, Allenby told Faisal to recognize French guidance, as Syria was to become a French protectorate. Faisal walked out. The next day, Lawrence requested leave and returned to England.

          "Everything that T. E. Lawrence had fought for, schemed for, and arguably betrayed his country for turned to ashes in a single five-minute conversation between Lloyd George and Georges Clemenceau." They met in London on December 1, agreeing that Britain would control Palestine and Iraq, while France would take Syria, finalizing their arrangement before Wilson's arrival. When it was over, Lawrence fell into "a state of extreme depression and nervous exhaustion." The region continued in its fractious ways: the French exiled Faisal, and ibn- Saud was consolidating power in the desert. Churchill, appointed Colonial Secretary in 1920, sought Lawrence's help. Together they crafted what appeared to be a sensible settlement at the Cairo Conference, bringing a measure of stability to the region.

         Lawrence's only desire thereafter was to disappear. In 1922, he enlisted in the RAF under an assumed name. In retrospect, it is clear that he suffered from PTSD during these years. He retired in 1935, and on the morning of May 13 he crashed his motorcycle. He died on the 19th at the age of 46. Churchill delivered the eulogy.

          As indicated in March, this book has been a struggle for me. It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2013, but it does tend to wander. To underscore that point, four additional narratives run alongside Lawrence's: a German diplomat and soldier - Major Curt Prüfer; a Turkish governor - Djemal Pasha; a Jewish Palestinian agronomist and spy - Aaron Aaronsohn; and an American oilman - William Yale. Their stories are important, and reading them carefully is worthwhile. However, I found it difficult to weave five parallel narratives together and chose instead to focus on the principal one. The events of a century ago are extraordinarily complex. Despite my criticisms, I have learned a great deal and gained a deeper appreciation for the intricate dynamics of the Middle East.

          Lawrence remains one of the most fascinating, enigmatic, brave, and perceptive military figures of all time—though he would likely have described himself as a civilian temporarily in uniform. Guerrilla wars are typically led by charismatic local figures rebelling against superior forces. In this case, he led the Arabs against his own country. He committed what could be considered treason and was later offered a knighthood, which he declined upon understanding the circumstances behind the invitation to Buckingham Palace—all before the age of thirty. He shattered every mold.

           *In 1918, Lawrence presciently observed, "If a Jewish state is to be created in Palestine, it will have to be done by force of arms and maintained by force of arms amid an overwhelmingly hostile population." He was also perceptive enough to see through Chaim Weizmann's reassurances to the Arabs about coexistence. In a report, he noted, "Dr. Weizmann hopes for a completely Jewish Palestine in fifty years."