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The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
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The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
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The Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Audiobook25 hours

The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Written by T.E. Lawrence

Narrated by Roy McMillan

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

4/5

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Currently unavailable

About this audiobook

Although T.E. Lawrence, commonly known as ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, died in 1935, the story of his life has captured the imagination of succeeding generations. Seven Pillars of Wisdom is a monumental work in which he chronicles his role in leading the Arab Revolt against the Turks during the First World War. A reluctant leader, and wracked by guilt at the duplicity of the British, Lawrence nevertheless threw himself into his role, suffering the blistering desert conditions and masterminding military campaigns which culminated in the triumphant march of the Arabs into Damascus.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateAug 1, 2012
ISBN9781843795544
Author

T.E. Lawrence

T.E. Lawrence, popularly known as Lawrence of Arabia, lived from 1888 to 1935. He was a British military officer and diplomat, acting as a crucial liaison with Arab forces during the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire from 1916 to 1918. The basis for the 1962 movie Lawrence of Arabia, his best known book is Seven Pillars of Wisdom, describing Lawrence’s experiences during the revolt, while 27 Articles summarizes his techniques and tactics.

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Reviews for The Seven Pillars of Wisdom

Rating: 4.102856971428572 out of 5 stars
4/5

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The first time I read this book was many, many years ago, but I never forgot it. I also watched the 1960’s movie—more than once on TV and once during a special screening in Brazil, after it had been restored; the desert scenes are absolutely gorgeous, breathtaking. Nevertheless, the movie took many liberties and left off many interesting parts of his campaigns. Lawrence’s book is very technical, has lots of details about his campaigns, so if you are not into war history, this is not the book for you; watch the movie instead.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This story was written in Paris, about the Diary of Lawrence of Arabia in terms of places and political that attitudes him.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The book in its depth, scope and subject matter reminds me of A Bright and Shining Lie. As with that book, it suffers from an overload of details that are distracting to someone unfamiliar with the events. I'm sure that to so one more intimately familiar with the historical events of the time the book would be a fascinating and informative read. I though came away with the most from the chapters that stuck with broader historical and political commentary, rather than the specific names of who slept in what tent when, who owned which camel (and said camel's gender) and what ulitmately killed the camel (mange, dehydration, neglect, etc).
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I have listened to a few hours of selections read out loud on the Naxos label.

    I admire T.E. Lawrence aka Lawrence of Arabia. Lawrence is a very good writer and communicates well what the fuss was about in Arabia during World War I.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Finally, finally got around to reading this book. I wanted to ever since I first saw the film almost 20 years ago. It is a remarkable story told in much detail - and in very beautiful language. I'm not much interested in the strategic details, but I found Lawrence's descriptions of his own thought processes and his personal journal enlightening and somewhat inspiring.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I know this is a classic and ever since in 1945 I learned it was a best seller in 1935 I have sort of wanted to read it. I came across a copy recently and decided I would never read it unlessI simply set out to do so. I found it drudgery often, detailing the events in the war against Turkey in 1917 and 1918 in so much detail that it made me wish that the end of the book would come--but it went on for over 600 pages. True, there are interesting and exciting episodes but the detail is often similar and seldom is there a date used--not even a year very often. So one does not know how close to the end the story is. I had hoped he would tell about his time at the Versailles peace conference but he does not. I would estimate the interesting pages in this 600 page book amount to about 75 pages.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Unnuanced generalizations about nations, peoples, etc. Not engaging.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Perfect narrative and very well read. Epic piece of history
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I see Lawrence as very much a transitional figure one foot in the old world of Victorian colonial explorer and imperialist. One foot in the modern age of left wing humanist third world-ism (he after all sympathizes more with the oppressed masses than he does his own people). It is an interesting snap shot of history right before the British empires decline and collapse from the point of view of a man who held many of the best qualities that created that empire. Whilst simultaneously hold many of the belief and social attitudes that would help to bring that empire down.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This audiobook is masterfully performed by a speaker that brings the words to life. Sound quality is perfect and I could listen to it over and over again. The story is long, and at some point you think that you would never possibly remember all the names or even the level of detail which the author presents, however, with time, the memories become your own because they’re woven with truth and care. This is more than just an impressive book. It is more than a period in history. This is a deep confession and the recounting of one of the most trying times in history. It can be surmised that the author needed to write everything down to prove that it wasn’t all a dream as history often forgets the lives who pass with the latest headline. This book needs to be read in its entirety, and should be a requirement of every aspiring leader.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Too much fluff. Could be more concise and less flowery with language.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Good narration.Historical novel written in a very good style with excellent imagery.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    The most amazing story I have ever read. He could never be adequately recognized or rewarded for the pain and suffering he endured to achieve his goals.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Seven Pillars of Wisdom is T.E. Lawrence's classic memoir of his time in the Arabian desert helping the many tribes try to coalesce into an effective fighting force in order to run the Turkish Empire out of the area, where they had been for centuries. Of course, Lawrence's real agenda was to help destroy the Turkish Army forces in the area and thereby help England and her allies win World War One. As Lawrence continues to gain ever greater trust and prestige among the Arab tribes and their leaders, his sense of fraudulence grows, as well. For the Arabs' cooperation is based in large part on English promises to ensure Arab independence after the war has been won, and Lawrence is fairly certain that the rulers of the Empire are dead set on colonization rather than independence for these people. Still, Lawrence's first loyalty is to king and country, so he carries on.The tale is long in the telling, checking in at 660 pages. Lawrence was a very good writer, and his diaries were very detailed. The hardships and splendors of his many long trips on camelback through extremely arduous terrain and weather, the details of Beduin desert life, the personalities of the people he comes in contact with, influences and commands and their daily lives and mores, and the frustrations, follies and terrors of individual battles and war in general are all effectively and compellingly related. Sometimes the physical aspects journeys that turn out to be of relatively minimal import are described in such detail that they leave a reader wondering what the point of that particular description was. But in the end, the breadth and length of these details helped me get a real sense of the vast distances being traversed in a way that a more rushed exposition would not. Again, both the physical world of the desert in all its glory and appalling hardship, and the chaos of battle, are very, very well described. The inner-workings of the British high command on the Middle Eastern front, and the personalities involved there as well, are also revealed. So, although this book needs a commitment in time and psychic energy, I feel it is well worth both for anyone interested in the topics described here. The only areas in which I felt Lawrence went astray were in his often agonized reflections about human nature and the relationship between physical and moral desires. There is in particular a pages-long segment of such contemplations towards the end that was pretty much incomprehensible to me. All in all, though, these passages make up a very, very small percentage of the tale.As I understand the wikipedia entry on Lawrence, it was early on assumed that he had embellished his tale freely, but that as biographers have researched the story they have come to think of Lawrence as a relatively trustworthy narrator after all. I could have that wrong, though.There was an edited-down version of this memoir, published as Revolt in the Desert, made available during Lawrence's lifetime and still available today. This may be more to the liking of many readers, and, really, I couldn't blame anyone for sticking to the shorter version. Personally, though, I'm glad I made space for the long version.wikipedia also mentions that fact that Lawrence refused to profit from the sales of either version of his memoirs, choosing instead to donate proceeds to charitable organizations.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    “I loved you, so I drew these tides of
    Men into my hands
    And wrote my will across the
    Sky and stars
    To earn you freedom, the seven
    Pillared worthy house,
    That your eyes might be
    Shining for me
    When we came

    Death seemed my servant on the
    Road, 'til we were near
    And saw you waiting:
    When you smiled and in sorrowful
    Envy he outran me
    And took you apart:
    Into his quietness

    Love, the way-weary, groped to your body,
    Our brief wage
    Ours for the moment
    Before Earth's soft hand explored your shape
    And the blind
    Worms grew fat upon
    Your substance

    Men prayed me that I set our work,
    The inviolate house,
    As a memory of you
    But for fit monument I shattered it,
    Unfinished: and now
    The little things creep out to patch
    Themselves hovels
    In the marred shadow
    Of your gift.”


    This book is the Odyssey of the desert war in world war one. Lawrence of Arabia tells the story of his adventures in his own style and view. Having recently read Lawrence in Arabia (by Scott Anderson) I found some of this dull feeling I had just read this same info.

    However, one of the things Anderson did not capture well in his analysis of Lawrence is his education. Lawrence was not merely an Oxford grad, but a scholar. His word choice and usage shows a high degree of learning and some of phrase turns are excellent. For instance: "The staff knew so much more of war than I did that they refused to learn from me of the strange conditions in which the Arab irregulars had to act; and I could not be bothered to set up a kindergarten of the imagination for their benefit."

    Some self-reflection: "I quickly outgrew ideas. So I distrusted experts, who were often intelligences confined within high walls, knowing indeed every paving-stone of their prison courts: while I might know from what quarry the stones were hewn and what wages the mason earned. I gainsayed them out of carelessness, for I had found materials always apt to serve a purpose, and Will a sure guide to some one of the many roads leading from purpose to achievement."

    While these passages jumped out at me they by no means form the way the whole book reads as he relates his history with the Arabs and the battles of minds, cultures, and war that he helped guide. I wished that he had written about his efforts after the war to divide the Middle East differently but he ends his tale near the end of the desert war and doesn't talk much of his life before the war either. A good read but not one to read to soon after another book about Lawrence's life.

    P.S. The Folio Society printing of this book is very beautiful and includes the parts later redacted or added by Lawrence.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Tonight I finished [Seven Pillars of Wisdom], a book I've started reading half a dozen times before without making it to the end. It's very long, and can be tedious at times, but then there will be a thrilling scene of setting explosives while the enemy is near or a painfully beautiful description of the desert.Lawrence's account of the revolt in the desert should not be taken as the definitive--or even reliable--history of the conflict, but he never intended it to be. As he writes in the introductory chapter: "In these pages the history is not of the Arab movement, but of me in it. It is a narrative of daily life, mean happenings, little people. Here are no lessons for the world, no disclosures to shock peoples. It is filled with trivial things, partly that no one mistake for history the bones from which some day a man may make history, and partly for the pleasure it gave me to recall the fellowship of the revolt." It is the romanticized, deeply personal truth of one man.Throughout the book, Lawrence comes off as a very complicated person: self-aggrandizing and self-deprecating; highly intelligent, but inexperienced; romantic, but often clear-sighted and cynical. By the end, I found myself even more fascinated by this quixotic figure who found himself torn between conflicting loyalties. I shall leave off with one of my favorite passages:Later I was sitting alone in my room, working and thinking out as firma way as the turbulent memories of the day allowed, when the Muedhdhinsbegan to send their call of last prayer through the moist night overthe illuminations of the feasting city. One, with a ringing voice ofspecial sweetness, cried into my window from a near mosque. I foundmyself involuntarily distinguishing his words: "God alone is great: Itestify there are no gods, but God: and Mohammed his Prophet. Come toprayer: come to security. God alone is great: there is no god--but God.'At the close he dropped his voice two tones, almost to speaking level,and softly added: 'And He is very good to us this day, O people ofDamascus.' The clamour hushed, as everyone seemed to obey the call toprayer on this their first night of perfect freedom. While my fancy, inthe overwhelming pause, showed me my loneliness and lack of reason intheir movement: since only for me, of all the hearers, was the eventsorrowful and the phrase meaningless. (Chapter CXX)

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Difficult book to read through entirely; largely covers the history of the Arab participation and the outcomes of World War 1. My 1935 copy, a gift in 1936 to my father, was an abridged history (Lawrence lost the original manuscript and had destroyed his original notes by then). The insights from a different era are interesting, especially in light of the later formation of Israel and the modernization of the original Palestine.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Seven Pillars of Wisdom is T.E. Lawrence's account of his actions in leading the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks in WWI. One reviewer called it a "novel traveling under the cover of biography," and I think that's accurate. After a new account of Lawrence's war was popularized this year, I became intrigued and decided to watch the epic Lawrence of Arabia, which I'd never seen before. We watched it a couple weeks ago.

    I thought it would be helpful in understanding some of the formation of Syria and the current tribal fighting from there across the Middle East.

    The movie is essentially a recreation of Lawrence's account. Peter O'Toole not only looks like Lawrence but also does an incredible job portraying Lawrence's obvious discomfort in his own skin, something that often front-and-center in the book. Lawrence admits his own inferiority complex, how much he dislikes himself, and his conflicted emotions leading the Arabs in the pretense of independence knowing full well the Allied powers will never allow it.

    Without more detailed knowledge of the map and the Arab divisions, it is somewhat difficult to follow all of the book; having seen the movie beforehand helped (even with the liberties taken with the timeline). Uncomfortable parts include Lawrence having to kill his own comrades either out of mercy or to prevent a blood feud, and Lawrence being sexually assaulted by a Turkish Major when he was captured (from reading other books on Turkey in WWI, I know sexual abuse of prisoners by the Turks was widespread).

    Lawrence's previous history in Arabia and how he obtained his knowledge of Arabic is left out, Lawrence only mentions it in passing. Unlike the movie, there was much more participation and coordination of the British and Australians with the Arab fighters, Lawrence was not a Lone Ranger out there.

    The book ends with Lawrence being granted leave, and he expresses regret. But regret for what? Taking leave? Regret for his participation in the war? Regret for not staying? It's up to the reader, I suppose. History tells us that Lawrence was mentally and psychologically shaken by his war experience, something very real in the book.

    In all, I give it 3.5 stars out of 5. I look forward to reading a historical documentation of Lawrence's role in WWI.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Brilliant. I've had a hopeless crush on Lawrence since I saw Lawrence of Arabia, but once I grew up I realized that, as dashing as Peter O'Toole is, the real T.E. is even better. His writing is amazingly descriptive and I found myself tearing up a little several times.

    1 person found this helpful

  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Lawrence's towering epic of his campaigns in the Middle East durinf WWI. Brilliant, exhausting, egnimatic, arrogant, maddening but never really boring. I don't think I would have liked Lawrence musch as a person, but his memoir is illuminating to say the least.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Classic text on war with the Arabs, originally distributed privately, then publicly available in 1935
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I selected this book to read as part of the research I was doing on my novel. I had seen the film "Lawrence of Arabia" in the past and now wanted to mine the book for details I needed to know about life among the Bedouin in 1920. I had planned to only read the parts I needed for my novel, but ended up devouring the whole thing. Then I read it again, parsing out what had now become an intense interest in TE's psychology. I then retreated to a biography and selected John Mack's "A Prince of our Disorder", not only because it won a Pulitzer, but because it was a psychological biography rather than the more materialistic ones that focused on TE's war efforts. (I do not care how Lawrence learned to blow up a train). As Lawrence's personality was dissected in that fabulous biography, I could not help but draw on a curious aspect of human-ness. There is a correlation between being deeply psychologically disturbed and fantastic achievements in some of history's greatest artists. Van Gogh, is the first who comes to mind, but Beethoven and Mozart and Wagner all had personality problems (I am being polite here), Degas, Cezanne, Gauguin: not particularly well-balanced. There are any number of examples, too many to discuss here. The opposite is true as well, as other men who are infamous rather than famous, and their achievements might be better categorized as harmful to humanity rather than having enriched it (these men tend to enter politics rather than the arts). But the point I am making is that in order to step out of the ordinary, the mold has to be broken, and cracking that mold often corresponds to a cracking the psyche. Reading Seven Pillars again after reading Mack's biography underlined the most poignant parts of the book, and watching the film again after being immersed in the two books brought out the fierce intent of the filmmakers to illustrate in sound and color what Lawrence meant to other people and to history, but not what that medium could convey to us what was churning in Lawrence's soul. They tried, they tried, and Peter O'Toole does a fantastic job looking like a tormented soul, his eyes at times full of humor and then pathos and then fear. But the screenplay cannot put the words in our ears that we need to hear in order to understand Lawrence. Only his own words can do that, and they are heartbreaking.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In bare terms, this is an autobiographical account of a British liaison officer and his adventures leading an Arab rebellion against the Turks. But there is much more than that. An account by a philosopher-traveler-soldier about war and adventure and heroism and all that.

    It is a product of his time. And Lawrence does seem a bit patronizing about the Arabs and Turks. But in other times, he is astonishingly sensitive and well-attuned and insightful to their needs. How else could he have helped led a successful guerrilla campaign?

    A book which still shines and has much to teach. If only he was in charge of the post-war partitioning of the world.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A good book in its own right, filled with fascinating details, adventure, excitement, and introspection. It details a period in history that helped create the Modern world. for all of that, it is not only one of most successful examples of an autobiography that I have ever read.It's also is one of those books. The books that help shape characters, dialog, and plot in other stories. Like a stone falling in a pond, the effect ripples out. I found myself recognizing so many ideas and concepts.It is a brilliant book and a fascinating read. One word of warning however, a bit like a really large slice of chocolate fudge cake. It is hard to eat in one sitting.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The strength of this book is in the writing itself. If you have ever read "Sagittarius Rising" by Cecil Lewis you may agree with me. Tedious? At times. Egotistical? Who wouldn't have been in that role? Truly a multi-level study of war, Arab culture, geography of the Arabian peninsula, his own homo-eroticism, and his underlying guilt at the British and French betrayal of the Arab people make this a classic that still explains and teaches today. It should be required reading for every President, Secretary of State, and everybody on the Middle East desk in the State Dept.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I read Michael Asher's "Lawrence: The Uncrowned King of Arabia" and enjoyed it so much that I wanted to read about the Arab Revolt in T.E. Lawrence's own words. Unfortunately, I only managed to get about half-way through the book... it was incredibly tedious and filled with minute detail that I found uninteresting (as someone who is merely casually interested in Arabian history.) This is probably a great tome for someone interested in serious study of Middle Eastern history... but for readers like me (who are more interested in adventure stories and more generalized history) this book is too plodding to enjoy.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A monumental book. Recounts in extensive detail the Arab revolt against the Ottomans during WW1 and how the British Army's Arabists played their parts. Lawrence's account has its great moments of prose.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Not an easy book to sum up in a paragraph or two: in many ways it's a big, shaggy mess, at times tediously self-centred and self-important, at times captivating and beautiful. You can put up with his endless agonising about his role in history and his "betrayal" of the Arabs, his sweeping generalisations about other people, his half-baked theories of this and that, his detached and callous descriptions of death and destruction; because there is nothing like the experience of riding across the desert with Lawrence. When he is talking about landscape, camels, tracks and wells, all the bloat and solipsism drops away, and his prose is perfectly fitted to what he is describing. Reading his descriptions of his journeys perversely gives a more intense visual experience than even the most technicoloured cinemascope version could hope to.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A riveting ride through the desert with this man and his cohorts as they battle the Turks. From a small beginning they accomplish the seemingly impossible, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Literate, extraordinary book.