中东，世界三大文明和三大宗教的发源地。悠久的文明和崇高的宗教，犹太人和阿拉伯人对命运的把握和纷争，演变成激烈的冲突。过去的事件和当今的时局紧密交织，使这里成为一个随时爆炸的火药桶。这里随时可能引发全球的毁灭性战争。中东的命运，谁主沉浮？循环往复的纷飞战火，何时平息？饱经苦难的中东，何时见到和平的明媚阳光？...

NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY New York Times • Christian Science Monitor • NPR • Seattle Times • St. Louis Dispatch National Book Critics Circle Finalist -- American Library Association Notable Book A thrilling and revelatory narrative of one of the most epic and consequential periods in 20th century history – the Arab Revolt and the secret “great game” to control the Middle East The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War One was, in the words of T.E. Lawrence, “a sideshow of a sideshow.” Amidst the slaughter in European trenches, the Western combatants paid scant attention to the Middle Eastern theater. As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far removed from the corridors of power. Curt Prüfer was an effete academic attached to the German embassy in Cairo, whose clandestine role was to foment Islamic jihad against British rule. Aaron Aaronsohn was a renowned agronomist and committed Zionist who gained the trust of the Ottoman governor of Syria. William Yale was the fallen scion of the American aristocracy, who traveled the Ottoman Empire on behalf of Standard Oil, dissembling to the Turks in order gain valuable oil concessions. At the center of it all was Lawrence. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in the sands of Syria; by 1917 he was the most romantic figure of World War One, battling both the enemy and his own government to bring about the vision he had for the Arab people. The intertwined paths of these four men – the schemes they put in place, the battles they fought, the betrayals they endured and committed – mirror the grandeur, intrigue and tragedy of the war in the desert. Prüfer became Germany’s grand spymaster in the Middle East. Aaronsohn constructed an elaborate Jewish spy-ring in Palestine, only to have the anti-Semitic and bureaucratically-inept British first ignore and then misuse his organization, at tragic personal cost. Yale would become the only American intelligence agent in the entire Middle East – while still secretly on the payroll of Standard Oil. And the enigmatic Lawrence rode into legend at the head of an Arab army, even as he waged secret war against his own nation’s imperial ambitions. Based on years of intensive primary document research, LAWRENCE IN ARABIA definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed. Sweeping in its action, keen in its portraiture, acid in its condemnation of the destruction wrought by European colonial plots, this is a book that brilliantly captures the way in which the folly of the past creates the anguish of the present.

本书是希提的主要著作之一，1937年问世，此后陆续修订重版或重印，到1970年已出到第十版。全书共计五十二章，篇幅较长，因此译本分为上下两册。上册包括前三十三章，从早期的阿拉伯人讲起，叙述了伊斯兰教的兴起，阿拉伯国家的诞生，阿拉伯帝国的兴盛与衰败，以及阿拉伯人在文化科学上的成就等。下册包括后十九章，主要内容，是讲述阿拉伯人在欧洲建立的国家，其他穆斯林国家，奥斯曼帝国，以及直到本世纪阿拉伯国家发展的新趋势。同时，也介绍了阿拉伯人在文化科学方面所取得的成就，以及对于西方所产生的影响等。 这部书的史料丰富，脉络清楚，文笔也较生动。书中谈到关于蒙古人的部分，有的对于我们研究我国历史可能有着一定的参考价值。