"By the standards of any age, the life of Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was extraordinary. During her travels in the Middle East, she rode with bandits; was captured by Bedouins; and sojourned in a harem. Her colleagues and friends included Winston Churchill, T. E. Lawrence, and Arabian sheiks. During World War I she worked for British intelligence and later played a crucial role in creating the modern Middle East.". "Bell's adventurous career belied her privileged upbringing and sharply contrasted with an era when the parlor and the nursery marked the expected, conventional boundaries of an Englishwoman's life. (Still, it would take Bell a dozen years to be recognized by, and admitted to, the patriarchal Royal Geographical Society.)". "Passionate about Arabia, then an inhospitable land of nomadic and warring tribes under Turkish control, she wrote this now classic account of her 1905 trip across the Syrian Desert from Jericho to Antioch. To read it is to be transported."--BOOK JACKET.