1. Conor Wiggins
HIST 477L
Dr. Peterson
12/12/14
The Evolving but Lasting Legacy of T.E. Lawrence
“All men dream: but not equally...the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they
may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.”1 As the dogs of war dug trenches and
breathed poisonous gasses across the mud trodden fields of Europe, Thomas Edward Lawrence
and the band of Arabian tribesmen with whom he traveled rode camels through the deserts of the
Middle East, making themselves the bane of the crumbling Ottoman Empire and a thorn in the
side of Germany’s eastern flank. Lawrence has been called many things. A hero and a liar. A
leader and a follower. Modest and hubristic; essential and irrelevant. For nearly half a century
after Lawrence’s two years in Arabia, and the subsequent propagandizing of his ‘adventures,’ the
historiographical arguments surrounding Lawrence was a battle of his biographers; historians
either sought to validate the popular history of his ‘legend’ created by the media, or elucidate the
numerous falsities and lies apparent throughout the course of his life. In the last ten years, with
renewed western investment in Middle Eastern issues, the study of Lawrence has experienced
newfound historical popularity and a step away from a biographical approach to Lawrence and
instead a thematic study of the repercussions his actions had on the course of world history. As
the study of the Arab revolt shifts from a biographical analysis of a single man to the lasting
consequence of the entire uprising, the emotional commitment inherent in Lawrence's
biographers is removed, allowing for a clearer image of the flawed yet brilliant British officer
Wiggins 1
1 T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (London, England: Oxford University Press, 1922), 4.

2. whose undertakings in Arabia played both an instrumental role in the Middle Eastern theater of
World War I and had unforeseeable historical repercussions that are being experienced today.
The historiographical study of Lawrence is unique in that one must first explore the
means by which Lawrence gained fame and where his legend began. With Europe in the grips of
the bloodiest conflict in human history to date, both British and American leaders sought to find
a picture of valor and romantic heroism for propaganda purposes that was more attractive than
the trench warfare that inspired works such as All Quiet on the Western Front. Three major
sources of media solidified Lawrence’s seat to historical fame; the first was Lowell Thomas’
With Lawrence in Arabia. With his promotional instructions, Thomas set out to journey with
Lawrence throughout the Middle East and write an account. Lawrence, only too happy to oblige,
aided Thomas in crafting a brilliantly fantasized version of the Arabian campaign that both gave
birth to the Lawrence legend and sparked the historical debate surrounding his cult of personality
that continues to the present day. Thomas concludes his book with the following:
[Lawrence] destroyed the thousand-year-old network of blood-feuds...and led the Arabs
into battle...[he] was the brains of the epic Arabian campaign and rode [in] triumph
through the bazaars of Damascus, and established a government for Prince Feisal in the
capital of Omar and Saladin...[his] glorious deeds won the adoration of the Arab
race...Such a man is Thomas Edward Lawrence, the modern Arabian Night.2
The centralization of the Arab revolt upon its sole western character and the glaringly apparent
orientalism was of no matter to Thomas. It is significant he concludes his novel in reference to
Lawrence as ‘the modern Arabian Night.’ The journalist’s task was to give the British trench
soldiers and citizens back at home inspiration to keep fighting and to coerce Americans into
Wiggins 2
2 Lowell Thomas, With Lawrence in Arabia (New York, New York: P.F. Collier & Son Corporation, 1924), 408.

3. joining this ‘Great War,’ as it was so called, and as Thomas hoped to prove. Lawrence’s
‘adventures’ throughout the ‘mysterious orient’ lent itself to fabrication.
Two more works after Thomas’ served to establish Lawrence forever in the history books
as a person of interest. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom was Lawrence’s self-written account of his
experiences in Arabia. Its semi-archaic literary language implies the author intended for his work
to be treated as a serious treatise to be studied and treasured. Historiographically the piece has
been subject to much praise and criticism. In popular culture it was absorbed and adapted into
the full length feature film “Lawrence of Arabia,” the third and most prominent piece of popular
media that brought Lawrence stardom. While the film does address some of the more well-
known flaws Lawrence may have had, it is overwhelmingly a popular history and tribute to a
‘hero’ as he leads the Arab Revolt solely through his own indomitable spirit.3 Robert Rosenstone,
a leading mind in the study of historical film, asks “‘What does the documentary document?’ The
answer is that it documents the priorities of the film-maker as much as the slice of life appearing
on screen.”4 Films about Lawrence are no exception to this historical rule. Both the documentary
adaptation of Lowell Thomas’ With Lawrence in Arabia, and the feature-length rendition of
Lawrence’s life, (inspired by Seven Pillars of Wisdom) “With Lawrence in Arabia,” are subject
to what Tosh identifies as the politically motivated documentaries of the earlier period of film-
making.
The first historical phase of the study of Lawrence were biographies produced about his
life between the late 1920s and mid 1940s. Despite historians attempt to remain objective when
studying their subject, many of the early biographies produced about Lawrence were essentially
Wiggins 3
3 Lawrence of Arabia, Feature film, directed by David Lean (1962; United Kingdom; Colombia Pictures.), Film.
4 Ibid.

4. didactic5 in nature. Robert Graves produced the first study of Lawrence outside of the popular
media; a companion of Lawrence’s throughout their time spent together at Oxford, it is hard to
imagine that Graves could have remained very objective when he produced his work Lawrence
and the Arabian Adventure in 1928.6 In essence, the biography serves as a more detailed look at
his life than what “Lawrence of Arabia” provided since Graves did not have to worry about
condensing his information into a three hour film. Orientalism, bias, and hero-worship are the
main characteristics that plague Graves’ commercially successful, but historically shoddy work.
In 1935, Lawrence died in a motorcycle accident on a highway in Britain while returning
home from the post office.7 After his death a slew of new historical accounts began to appear;
Lawrence by His Friends was one such work. Making his bias very apparent, the author begins
by saying “Lawrence’s life is better than any fairy story. As we hear it we are transported back to
the days of medieval chivalry.”8 Via oral accounts the author paints a picture of Lawrence’s life
from birth until death. While often seen as a direct ‘recreation’ of the past by those who lived it,
oral histories certainly have their pitfalls. Analyzing the drawbacks to oral histories, Tosh says:
His or her memories, however precise and vivid, are filtered through subsequent
experience. They may be contaminated by what has been absorbed from other sources
(especially the media); [or] they may be overlaid by nostalgia9
Wiggins 4
5 Ibid., 67.
6 Robert Graves, Lawrence and the Arabian Adventure (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc,
1928).
7 Richard Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press,
Publishers, 1955), 59.
8 Ed. A.W. Lawrence, T.E. Lawrence By His Friends (London, UK: Alden Press, 1937), 17.
9 John Tosh, The Pursuit of History (Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited, 2010), 320.

5. The media had declared Lawrence a hero and the author interviewed his subjects only a few
months after Lawrence’s death, it is safe to assume that these problems inherent in oral histories
most likely affected those asked to recount their times with Lawrence. In addition, those
interviewed were people such as Lawrence’s mother, his school friends, his professors, and his
closest confidants while in the Middle East.10 It is difficult to believe that someone’s mother
whose son had just died or a professor asked a question about his most famous student would
give an objective answer. In an interview with Sheikh Hamoudi, one of Lawrence’s friends from
the Revolt, the Sheikh says “I have lost my son...but I do not grieve for him as I do for
Lawrence. My son can be replaced.”11 Clearly the orientalism, hero-worshiping, and author bias
that characterized Graves’ biography still had not yet been removed from the historical study of
Lawrence by the late 1930s.
It took nearly twenty years after Lawrence’s death and thirty since he left Arabia for a
historian to finally brave the media and debunk the ‘Arabian Night’ persona that had been
perpetuated since WWI. Aldington, unlike all of Lawrence’s previous biographers, recognized
that Lawrence was first and foremost a historian. Because of his background in history the
British Colonel understood that what he did down in Arabia would be logged in the annals of
‘The Great War’s’ history; Lawrence wanted to make sure that his chapter was an important one.
In his introductory letter to Alister Kershaw, Aldington accounts for the change in his project
when he discovered that “the national hero turned out at least half a fraud. The scope of my
projected book was insensibly changed and from a biography it became a biographical
Wiggins 5
10 Ed. A.W. Lawrence, T.E. Lawrence By His Friends (London, UK: Alden Press, 1937), 1-220.
11 Ibid.

6. enquiry.”12 Protecting himself from those who would say Aldington was source mining, looking
for facts to tarnish Lawrence’s image in a thesis-driven paper, Aldington iterates that his paper
was source-driven and it was his objective analysis that led him to discover many of Lawrence’s
contradictions and lies. Aldington recognized that, from a very early age, lying inherent in
Lawrence’s character. Always careful to cover his tracks, Aldington was able to discover several
instances in which Lawrence’s lies are very apparent. As a young man Lawrence owned a
treasured bicycle, his friend Vyvyan Richards believed Lawrence’s bicycle was built by “Lord
Nuffield [and] Mr. Morris at Oxford....together to perfect the design.”13 Canon Hall was told by
Lawrence that “the diminutive bicycle specifically built for him by Lord Nuffield...had been
stolen outside All Souls.”14 Lawrence’s brother believed the bike to be “built to [Lawrence’s]
order in a shop at Oxford by Mr. Morris.”15 The relevance to this seemingly irrelevant story is
that, through his research, Aldington discovered the Lord Nuffield said himself he “gave up
making bicycles before 1900.”16 Aldington dug through Lawrence’s claims throughout his entire
life to find inconsistencies like this throughout his many tales. Many historians would argue that
this is such an insignificant instance, in terms of the grander scheme of his life, that it does not
matter. However, it does matter; Aldington believed that someone who tells trivial lies to his own
family and friends looses credibility and can no longer have of taking his word taken at face-
value. Aldington believes this need for personal greatness at the expense of the truth derived
Wiggins 6
12 Richard Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press,
Publishers, 1955), 12.
13 Ibid., 59.
14 Ibid.
15 ibid.
16 Ibid.

7. directly from the fact that Lawrence “was the illegitimate son of an Anglo-Irish baronet, bitterly
resented his social inferiority, and longed to compensate for it by some great achievement.”17
Down to Lawrence’s very death, Aldington sought to fact-check every claim that both Lawrence
and his didactic biographers may have fantasized. Whereas Graves says Lawrence “met
catastrophe in what seems to have been characteristic sacrifice of self to avoid collision,18”
Aldington learned from accounts and through a closer examination of the geography of the road
that “Coming back fast from the post-office...Lawrence ignored the salutary rule that the crest of
even a shallow hill is a blind corner if the road is hidden, and came full speed on two errand boys
whose cycles took up too much of the road.”19
After over thirty years of heralding Lawrence as a national hero, Aldington experienced
significant backlash for his biographical inquiry. He funded the project almost entirely by
himself because his publishing company believed the book would be unpopular; the project
eventually bankrupted him. In the media, Aldington’s book was attacked and he was accused of
having a vendetta against Lawrence and British war heroism as a whole. In the historical world,
however, Aldington’s book was monumental. In 1998 Fred Crawford analyzed the impact
Aldington’s work had on the historical field of study surrounding Lawrence. Dying only seven
years after publishing his book, Aldington was never able to see the fruits of his labor. Crawford,
however, gives homage to Aldington’s ground-breaking study saying:
Aldington made an enormous impact with his TEL book. No biographer after him could
simply gloss over TEL’s propensities for myth making and self-advertising. His
Wiggins 7
17 Ibid., 109.
18 Robert Graves, Lawrence and the Arabian Adventure (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company,
Inc, 1928), 20.
19 Richard Aldington, Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press,
Publishers, 1955), 387.

8. painstaking care to document his findings introduced higher standards to TEL
scholarship. Before Aldington, uncritical biographers depended excessively on TEL’s
unsupported and frequently unreliable word, but Aldington has forced TEL’s admirers to
face the inconsistencies in the legend, actions, and statements of their hero and to
corroborate TEL’s claims with independent evidence. The widespread demythologizing
of TEL began with Aldington, and all the latter-day demystifiers ride on his shoulders.20
In essence, Aldington was the start of the real historical debate surrounding Lawrence. Pseudo-
propagandized biographies would no longer hold weight in the historical community after
Aldington uncovered many of Lawrence’s inconstancies. Quite contrary to what Aldington may
have intended, however, ‘Lawrence the flawed leader’ was a far more interesting topic of study
for historians than ‘Lawrence the British hero.’Aldington only served to spark newfound
historical debate and fanned the flame of Lawrence’s fame.
On the coattails of Aldington’s success came a slew of new historiographical biographies
looking to delve into Lawrence’s story with newfound vigor and curiosity. T.E. Lawrence an
Arab View was one of the first major works on Lawrence produced by a non-western biographer
from a non-western standpoint. Author Suleiman Mousa claimed that “with the exception of
Lawrence, none of the British or French officers ever claimed to be instrumental in bringing the
Revolt to a successful conclusion or to have actually led the Arabs...Many Arabs, therefore, view
the Lawrence legend as a western fabrication.”21 Following in Aldington’s footsteps, Mousa
underwent a strenuous fact-finding mission by deeply analyzing Lawrence’s claims and cross-
referencing them with what he was told by those he interviewed. Mousa concluded that
Lawrence’s ‘adventures’ in Arabia gained popularity and fame because of western orientalism
Wiggins 8
20 Allen Crawford, Richard Aldington and Lawrence of Arabia (United States of America: Southern Illinois
University Press, 1998), 198.
21 Suleiman Mousa, T.E. Lawrence An Arab View (London, England: Oxford University Press, 1966), vii.

9. and the desire for a heroic WWI narrative; this fame was then perpetuated throughout history by
western authors seeking to profit from a commercially successful topic. Mousa condemns the
west for viewing the Arabs as a monolithic “mongrel horde.”22 As the earlier biographer Robert
Graves said, “Lawrence set forth from Oxford eastwards, a crusader of the twentieth century on
behalf of peoples and causes which must remain for ever associated with his name.”23 One can
see Mousa’s point; why is it that Lawrence, who only spent two years in Arabia should have the
leaders of the Arab revolt associated with his name rather than the other way around? It seems
very Eurocentric that a British Colonel sent to aid a preexisting revolt should become seen as the
focal point of said rebellion. Yet, while it is true that the Allies propagandized Lawrence’s story
to boost moral and Lawrence’s early biographies perpetuated an orientalist viewpoint, that does
not mean that Lawrence’s legacy is inherently untrue. Mousa claims that the west put an
undeserving spotlight on their sole representative and treat the Arabs as a faceless mass; yet is
not Mousa hypocritically doing the same thing? He claims to provide the ‘Arab’ opinion on
Lawrence. Mousa interviewed sixteen total individuals (all sixteen of whom were Arab) for his
oral history. The lack of diversity and small number of sources signifies an potential bias, not to
mention it had been over half a century since those he interviewed had last seen Lawrence.
Mousa belittles the west for giving Arabs no face in their own Revolt but Mousa does the same
thing by claiming to provide the opinion for an entire race through only sixteen interviews.
While Mousa provided an interesting and new look at Lawrence from the other side of the story,
Wiggins 9
22 Ibid., 127.
23 Robert Graves, Lawrence and the Arabian Adventure (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company,
Inc, 1928), 18.

10. he sought to claim too much by providing the ‘Arab opinion’ on an extremely complex and
controversial man who has been both loved and hated by many.
Another author that arose in the post-Aldington phase undertook an unique
psychoanalytical analysis of Lawrence in The Medievalism of Lawrence of Arabia. Historians are
often so entranced by Lawrence’s two years spent in Arabia that they forget Lawrence was first
and foremost a medieval historian. Lawrence’s Oxford thesis Crusader Castles earned him a
First (a B.A. degree with highest honors) from Oxford24 and is still a popular text amongst
medievalists today. Allen, the author of The Medievalism of Lawrence of Arabia, believes that
Lawrence’s work Seven Pillars of Wisdom reflects “a medievalist’s version of the last of the old-
style wars.”25 Psychoanalyzing Lawrence through a medievalist lens, Allen theorized that
Lawrence possessed a neo-chivalric code that was both his greatest strength and the reason for
his downfall. The paternalistic culture, codes of honor, and feudal social structure inherent in a
medievalist sense of chivalry blended very well with the tribalistic values of the Arabian people.
This allowed Lawrence to empathize with the Arabs and their cause, permitting him to gain their
trust, respect, and help. Upon discovering the establishment of the Sykes-Picot agreement and
that the Arab people were not going to have their own nation as promised, Allen argues that this
broken promise shattered Lawrence and his neo-chivalric fantasy world in which he resided
when he realized he was the only westerner by this dead code of honor.26 Following this, it is
reported that Lawrence made a declaration of ‘no prisoners’ when he and his men were raiding
Wiggins 10
24 M.D Allen, The Medievalism of Lawrence of Arabia (University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State
University, 1991), 3.
25 Ibid., 6.
26 Ibid., 7.

11. trains; this ‘total war’ was unlike his style and Allen attributes this to undiagnosed PTSD caused
by the psychological collapse of Lawrence’s medievalist code.
From 1920 until the end of the twentieth century many impassioned and contradictory
statements were made about Lawrence. Some believed him to be a dynamic and heroic figure
who played an essential role in the Eastern theater of WWI, others saw him as a hubristic liar
with a desire for fame and fortune. Despite the differences in these historiographical debates they
all have one thing in common, they are biographies. For the majority of the twentieth century, the
scholarship surrounding Lawrence was a ‘battle of the biographers;’ one would either be for or
against Lawrence and then attempt to either perpetuate his hero-narrative or seek to tear it down.
According to Tosh, the major problem inherent in a biography is that
The problem of bias cannot be lightly disposed of...anyone who devotes years to the
study of one individual...can hardly escape some identification with the subject and will
inevitably look at the period to some extent through that person’s eyes. Furthermore,
biographical narrative encourages a simplified, linear interpretation of events.27
Up until the turn of the century all historical discussion surrounding Lawrence came from a
biographical interpretation of history. Historians argued over Lawrence’s ‘legacy’ but this legacy,
and those involved in creating it, were all minor characters in Lawrence’s world. In order to truly
understand a man as complex as Lawrence during a turbulent time of change with ancient
empires falling and modern nations rising, one must take a step back and understand the lasting
significance of Lawrence’s actions in their broader historical context
James J. Schneider’s unique new study of the significance of Lawrence does exactly that.
In 1946 General Raul Salan sat across from guerrilla leader Vo Nguyen Giap seeking to
Wiggins 11
27 John Tosh, The Pursuit of History (Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited, 2010), 68.

12. renegotiation French authority in Indochina (soon to be Vietnam) following six years of Japanese
occupation.28 Salan asked Giap for the source of his inspiration and success in resisting the far-
superior Japanese force for so long. Giap immediately reached behind his desk and withdrew a
large book, gesturing toward it he said “My fighting gospel is T.E. Lawrence’s Seven Pillars of
Wisdom. I am never without it.”29 Giap went on to mentor Ho Chi Minh in his learned art of
guerrilla warfare which gained the Vietnamese independence in the face of the strongest military
ever known. Schneider does not deny the distinct possibility that Lawrence may have
exaggerated and lied about many of the heroic deeds he claimed to have done. Yet one cannot
deny that the man, whether he did everything he said or not, had a lasting effect on the future of
warfare. In Guerrilla Leader T.E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt, Schneider espouses that
Lawrence was the first theorist and practitioner to revolutionize guerrilla warfare within
the broader context of modern industrialized warfare. The re-imagination and reframing
of guerrilla warfare was a heresy that few initially grasped. Those who did follow
Lawrence through the halls of legend: Mao Tse-tung, Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap.30
A biographer of Lawrence’s would never be able to see this connection. From a biographical
standpoint, a historian views their character as the center point of study and the analysis
continues in a linear fashion that concludes when their character’s lifeline ends; Schneider does
the opposite. As a military historian living in the 21st century, there is a newfound interest in
Middle Eastern studies with ongoing military engagement in the region. This, in turn, creates a
desire to find a historical answer as to why the west is experiencing a stalemate against inferior
forces. As Alexander was pupil to Plato, he to Aristotle, and he to Socrates, one can trace (as
Wiggins 12
28 James J. Schneider, Guerrilla Leader T.E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt (New York, New York: Bantam Books,
2011), 4.
29 Ibid., 4-5.
30 Ibid., 73.

13. Schneider has) a line of guerrilla leaders back to their ‘Socrates;’ and that is Lawrence. Schneider
is able to transcend the limitations inherent in a biographical style of research and paint a fuller
picture of Lawrence’s legacy and how it played a role both in the past and the present day.
Early in the post WWI era, those who wished to pay homage to Lawrence did so by
didactic biographies that heralded him as a ‘hero.’ Inflated by the media and government
propaganda, these popular histories were commercially very successful. These works concluded
that Lawrence’s legacy was that he was the hero who led the Arab revolt, brought down the
Ottoman Empire, and aided in the downfall of Germany. However, this is not truly Lawrence’s
legacy. In retaliation, Aldington and those who came after him sought to find faults in this legacy
by attacking the man behind it. They proved that Lawrence was an impulsive liar and aided in
the creation and perpetuation of his image. However, this does not destroy his legacy. What all of
Lawrence’s biographers failed to realize is that Lawrence’s legacy does not live or die with the
credibility of the man. Through a far more removed and objective study of the consequences of
Lawrence’s actions in the Middle East, one can see that through his unique personality and
brilliance he was able to redefine guerrilla warfare to become a weapon for the 20th and 21st
century. Whether or not Lawrence was a hero or a liar is irrelevant to his legacy; Lawrence’s
legacy is the unintentional repercussions of his brilliant military tactics. The Allies succeeded in
defeating Germany but they did so at a price, they unknowingly allowed one of their greatest
minds to educate a people in a new art of warfare that would serve their purposes for decades to
come. Ninety nine years ago Lawrence “went down to Arabia to see and consider its great
men,”31 these men passed on what they learned and as a result the world was changed forever.
Wiggins 13
31 T. E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom (London, England: Oxford University Press, 1922), 24.

14. The volatile and revolutionary world of today where small bands of fighters can rise up against
entire nations is directly the product of Lawrence’s innovative military tactics taught to the Arabs
nearly a century ago; that is the lasting legacy of the flawed but brilliant Thomas Edward
Lawrence.
Wiggins 14

15. Bibliography
Aldington, Richard. Lawrence of Arabia: A Biographical Inquiry. (Westport, Connecticut:
Greenwood Press, Publishers, 1955).
Allen, M.D. The Medievalism of Lawrence of Arabia. University Park, Pennsylvania: The
Pennsylvania State University, 1991.
Ed. Lawrence, A.W. T.E. Lawrence By His Friends. London, UK: Alden Press, 1937.
Graves, Robert. Lawrence and the Arabian Adventure. Garden City, New York: Doubleday,
Doran & Company, Inc, 1928.
Lawrence of Arabia. Feature Film. Directed by David Lean. 1962, United Kingdom, Colombia
Pictures, Film.
Lawrence, T. E. Seven Pillars of Wisdom. London, England: Oxford University Press, 1922.
Mousa, Suleiman. T.E. Lawrence An Arab View. London, England: Oxford University Press,
1966.
Schneider, James J. Guerrilla Leader T.E. Lawrence and the Arab Revolt. New York, New York:
Bantam Books, 2011.
Thomas, Lowell. With Lawrence in Arabia. New York, New York: P.F. Collier & Son
Corporation, 1924.
Tosh, John. The Pursuit of History. Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited, 2010.
Wiggins 15