In the introduction to his A Peace to End All Peace, the American historian David Fromkin noted, "The Middle East, as we know it from today's headlines, emerged from decisions made by the Allies during and after the First World War." The truth embodied in that statement is reinforced by Scott Anderson's skillful portrayal of Thomas Edward Lawrence, whose legendary exploits in the Middle East intersected with three momentous decisions made by Britain (and France) during and immediately after the end of World War I: to support the Hashemite military uprising against Turkey (1916-18), to sign the secret Sykes-Picot agreement (1916) and to issue the Balfour Declaration (1917).

Lawrence's rise to prominence within the British intelligence and military bureaucracy in Cairo was as swift as it was unpredictable. Following graduation from Oxford with a degree in history, Lawrence developed a deep affinity for the Middle East and Arab culture, and a hatred for the Turks, while leading an archaeological expedition in northern Syria in early 1911. By January 1914, he used an expedition in southern Palestine as an archaeological ruse to carry out military mapping for Horatio Kitchener, the British consul general in Cairo, who was concerned about a potential Turkish attack against British forces in Egypt.

A few months later, Lawrence assumed a new position as a civilian cartographer in the General Staff's Geographical Section in London and was awarded the military rank of second lieutenant. By mid-December 1914, he joined the military-intelligence unit of the British Expeditionary Force in Cairo and was placed in charge of the mapping room. Exactly two years later, the "painfully shy Oxford archaeologist without a single day of military training" became "the battlefield commander of a foreign revolutionary army," leading the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Empire — after having been promoted to the rank of captain.

The chain of events that propelled Lawrence to such lofty heights began in February 1914, when Abdullah, the second-oldest son of Sharif (King) Hussein, the ruler of the Hejaz, met Kitchener in Cairo to inquire about the likely British response to a revolt from the Arabian Peninsula against Turkey. Kitchener eventually indicated that, if such an uprising were to materialize, Britain would ensure the independence of the Sharifate against any external aggression. By July 1915, Hussein upped the ante, insisting that England grant independence to the entire Arab world in return for an Arab revolt against Turkey.

There followed a long exchange of correspondence between Hussein and Sir Henry McMahon, the British high commissioner in Cairo, culminating in late October 1915 with Britain's seeming accession to all of Hussein's territorial demands: an independent Arab nation in payment for a joint British-Arab uprising. However, as Anderson correctly points out, there were at least two major problems with McMahon's assurances. First, the British never defined clearly and explicitly what they meant by "independence," a term intended to suggest a paternalistic rule of native populations until they were ready to assume self-government. Second, and equally problematic, although McMahon's assurances excluded certain areas from the British promise, Palestine was never mentioned by name in the entire lengthy correspondence. Anderson therefore argues that "a strict reading of that correspondence could only lead to the conclusion that Palestine was to be part of the independent Arab nation."

The Arab revolt began in early June 1916, with Hussein's army expelling the Turks from Mecca and Jeddah. Four months later, with the Turks still ensconced in Medina, Lawrence was dispatched to the Hejaz to determine how much British military assistance Hussein's forces required to oust the Turks. He arrived at two conclusions. First, the British military presence in Arabia should be held to an absolute minimum in order to assuage Arab fears of a European takeover. Second, only Faisal, Hussein's third-oldest son, had the ability to lead a successful revolt. By November 1916, Lawrence was appointed temporary liaison officer to Faisal.

During the next two years, Lawrence led Faisal's forces in several battles, evicting Turkish forces from the northern Arabian Peninsula and from the port city of Aqaba. In parallel with the Egyptian Expeditionary Force that took over Palestine along the Mediterranean coast under General Edmund Allenby, Faisal's army marched northward inflicting defeats on the Turks along the areas east of the Jordan River. It took over Damascus on October 1, 1918, with Lawrence becoming the temporary de facto ruler of the city. What deprived Faisal and the Arabs of gaining permanent control over Syria and political independence is another sequence of secret events that had begun almost three years earlier.

The British government decided to abrogate its prior commitments to Hussein in January 1916 when its agent, Mark Sykes, concluded a secret agreement with François Picot, acting on behalf of the French government. The accord stipulated a postwar division of the Middle East among the Allies, awarding Iraq to Britain and allocating Syria, including Lebanon, to France. Palestine was to be jointly administered by Britain, France and Russia. The agreement was initially kept from Hussein and British officials in Cairo. According to Anderson, Lawrence recalled that, when he and his colleagues on the Cairo military intelligence staff found out about Sykes-Picot, they had "a collective urge to vomit."

In early February 1917, Lawrence committed an act of treason by revealing the contents of Sykes-Picot to Faisal. Anderson argues that Lawrence was willing to betray his own government because the Arabs were being encouraged to fight and die in return for meaningless promises that had been traded away. Anderson further speculates that Lawrence was also infuriated by what he regarded as Britain's perfidy: Sykes-Picot destroyed his boyhood fantasies of serving as the liberator of an enslaved people.

In mid-November 1917, the newly installed Bolshevik government, in a move to dissociate itself from collaboration with discredited former allies, published the text of the Sykes-Picot agreement. Revelation of the document intensified widespread Arab anger against Britain and France and led Faisal to enter into a dialogue with his Turkish foes. According to Anderson, "Lawrence no longer regarded himself as fighting for Great Britain, but for Arab independence." In order to undo Sykes-Picot, deprive London and Paris of their imperial designs, and enable the Arabs to lay claim to areas they themselves had conquered, Lawrence hastened Faisal's march and entry into Damascus.

Lawrence's dream of liberating Syria for the Arabs was shattered shortly thereafter. French forces began to enter Damascus on November 1, 1919, and in April 1920, the San Remo conference affirmed the territorial division initially envisioned in Sykes-Picot, but with some modifications. Britain took over the administration of Iraq and an enlarged Palestine that included substantial territory east of the Jordan River. France gained control over Syria, and in July 1920 unceremoniously ousted Faisal, the self-declared king of Syria, from Damascus. Shortly thereafter, the British installed Faisal as king of Iraq.

Anderson sheds new light on Lawrence's attitude toward Zionism and the much lesser-known interactions that took place between him and Zionist leaders and activists both before and after the issuance of the Balfour Declaration. On February 1, 1917, Lawrence held a meeting with Aaron Aaronsohn, the founder and leader of NILI, a Jewish spy ring that provided the British with useful intelligence about Turkish military forces in Palestine. When told that the Zionists intended to establish an independent Jewish nation in Palestine by buying all the land and forcing the fellaheen off the land, Lawrence responded that the Jewish community in Palestine had two choices: coexist with the Arab majority or have their throats slashed.

Lawrence also objected strongly to the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, which committed the British government to support and facilitate "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people." In a meeting that he held in March 1918 with William Yale, the U.S. State Department "special agent" in Cairo, Lawrence is reported to have characterized the Balfour Declaration as a dangerous, unwise and foolhardy policy. With remarkable prescience, Lawrence warned, "If a Jewish state is to be created in Palestine, it will have to be done by force of arms and maintained by the force of arms amid an overwhelmingly hostile population."

In May 1918, Lawrence did not support a British initiative to create an entente between the Arab rebel leadership and the Zionists. When ordered by his superiors to arrange and participate in a meeting between Faisal and Chaim Weizmann, president of the English Zionist Federation, Lawrence failed to respond and conveniently disappeared on a reconnaissance mission when the Weizmann-Faisal encounter eventually took place in Aqaba on June 4, 1918. Lawrence was convinced that the meeting would merely strengthen Faisal's and Hussein's rivals in the Middle East.

A short while later, Lawrence finally met with Weizmann in Ramleh. Weizmann offered to promote Arab aspirations for political independence with Zionist money and military training for Faisal's forces. After that meeting, Lawrence advised the Foreign Office to reject Weizmann's offer and to prevent him from meeting Sharif Hussein. In his report to London, Lawrence warned, "Dr. Weizmann hopes for a completely Jewish Palestine in fifty years, and a Jewish Palestine, under a British facade, for the moment."

Hoping to exchange Arab support of the Zionist enterprise in Palestine for Zionist backing of an independent Arab Syria, Lawrence eventually helped to negotiate a joint proclamation issued by Weizmann and Faisal at the end of December 1918. Each leader pledged to recognize the other's claims at the Paris Peace Conference, but at Lawrence's insistence, a proviso was included that the agreement was valid only if Syrian independence under Arab rule was achieved.

Lawrence's final and undoubtedly most lasting contribution to the territorial reshaping of the Middle East occurred when he joined Winston Churchill, the new colonial secretary, in 1921 in Cairo for a conference that disposed of the remnants of Britain's war spoils. It was here that Iraq was recognized as an Arab kingdom with Faisal as its monarch. Trans­jordan was to be officially detached from the rest of Palestine, with Abdullah as its ruler. The British also upheld Hussein's claim to rule over the Hejaz, while simultaneously recognizing Ibn Saud's claims in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula. As Anderson wryly notes, Lawrence had quite literally become the unseen kingmaker of the Middle East.

There can be little doubt that the legacy of the archaeologist-turned-kingmaker is more tragic than Lawrence's premature death at 46 in a motorcycle accident. Described by Anderson as "the architect of momentous events," T.E. Lawrence helped to create a region torn to this very day by war, religious strife, ethnic conflict, authoritarian rule and abject poverty.

Anyone who opts to read this volume will be richly rewarded by its exquisite prose, wide-ranging scope, and astute and original scholarship. Scott Anderson is to be commended for producing a monumental book that is bound to become a classic.