I first discussed Lawrence of Arabia by Ranulph Fiennes over an evening mezze in Jordan with a senior civil servant. With myself stationed in Jordan – Lawrence’s old backyard – and him working on Middle Eastern defence policy from the UK, we find ourselves, somewhat sheepishly, admitting a shared disappointment. We both expected more. What we encountered was a curious blend of personal memoir, travelogue, and partial biography that struggled to bring T.E. Lawrence meaningfully to life.
Ranulph Fiennes, famed adventurer and former soldier, sets out to retrace Lawrence’s footsteps across the Middle East. It’s a promising concept: a man of notable action revisiting the deserts that shaped a legend. Yet the execution falters. Fiennes repeatedly draws comparisons between himself and Lawrence, highlighting his own limited Arabic, failed training attempts, and military frustrations. These reflections seem less like acts of humility and more like a veiled attempt to position himself within the Lawrence mythos. In doing so, Fiennes’s personal shortcomings become a distraction and end up pulling the reader away from, rather than toward, a deeper understanding of Lawrence’s legacy.
More troubling, the book does little to situate Lawrence within the broader strategic tapestry of the First World War. It gestures at the geopolitical stakes but rarely lingers long enough to add analytical weight. Lawrence – the man, the myth, the contradiction – remains frustratingly distant. There is little exploration of what made Lawrence so tactically and politically distinctive – his use of mobility and surprise in guerrilla warfare, his attempts to unify disparate Arab tribes under a single campaign, or his complex relationship with British imperial objectives. On the rare occasions when the narrative gains momentum and begins to offer something substantial, Fiennes abruptly shifts focus back to his own anecdotes, jolting the narrative like a kick to the shins.
This contrast is thrown into sharper relief when compared to authors who have succeeded where Fiennes has not. Michael Asher’s Lawrence: The Uncrowned King of Arabia offers a far more grounded, critical engagement with both Lawrence’s strategic brilliance and inner turmoil. Even Scott Anderson’s Lawrence in Arabia manages to tell a multi-threaded geopolitical story while still rendering Lawrence vivid and contradictory. In contrast, Fiennes remains oddly disinterested in the world Lawrence helped shape. Instead of offering readers insight into a region still grappling with the legacy of imperial meddling, he offers sunburn, sore feet, and a sense of being out of place – both geographically and literarily.
To the military reader, this book might offer a surface-level introduction to Lawrence and the Arab Revolt. It could serve as a light primer for those unfamiliar with the geography or tone of the campaign. Where the book does show brief promise is in its occasional glimpses of the emotional toll the campaign took on Lawrence, hinting at the inner strain behind the myth. These fleeting moments offer a rare glimpse of the man behind the legend. But for anyone seeking serious insight into Lawrence’s irregular warfare, adaptation to Arab cultural dynamics, or the early complexities of building ‘partner’ capacity in fluid and unfamiliar terrain, this book will fall short.
In the end, Lawrence of Arabia reads less like a serious study of a singular historical figure and more like a tribute to Fiennes’s own uneven Middle Eastern journey. A mirage of a book – promising from afar, but ultimately offering little substance once approached.
