Gertrude Bell was a remarkable woman for any age but her achievements in the British Colonial Office during World War I and in Iraq after the war were truly extraordinary. She was a prime architect, if not the mother of the modern state of Iraq.The Arab War is comprised of dispatches that she wrote in 1917 for the Arab Bulletin, an internal intelligence summary printed by the Arab Bureau which was the Allied agency coordinating the Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks. It displays her keen powers of observation and her ability to beautifully articulate her conclusions about the complexity of the relations among the many tribes and cities of Mesopotamia. In her words: "We shall be wise to eschew any experiments tending to rush them (the tribes of Iraq) into highly specialized institutions—a policy which could commend itself only to those who are never wearied by words that signify nothing." Although these essays were written 95 years ago they contain a great deal of wisdom about former Ottoman territories that is just as relevant now as it was then. Size: 21,000 words or approximately 85 pages
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