Gertrude Bell : queen of the desert, shaper of nations / Georgina Howell.

"Originally published as: Daugher of the desert. London : Macmillan, 2006.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"She has been called the female Lawrence of Arabia, which, while not inaccurate, fails to give Gertrude Bell her due. She was at one time the most powerful woman in the British Empire: a nation builder, the driving force behind the creation of Iraq. Born in 1868 into a world of privilege, she turned her back on house parties and debutante balls and instead chose to read history at Oxford, where she took a First in only two years. She would go on to become an archaeologist, spy, Arabist, linguist, author (of Persian Pictures, The Desert and the Sown, among many other books), poet, photographer, and legendary mountaineer (she took off her skirt and climbed the Alps in her underclothes)." "Bell traveled the globe several times, but her passion was the desert, where she traveled with only her guns and her servants. Her Arabic skills, her tribal affiliations, and her vast knowledge of the region made her indispensable to the Cairo intelligence office of the British government during World War I." "Following her stint in Intelligence, Bell advised the Viceroy of India in Delhi; then, as an army major, traveled to the front lines in Mesopotamia. There, she supported the creation of an autonomous Arab nation for Iraq, promoting and engineering the election of King Faisal to the throne and helping to draw the borders of the fledgling state."--BOOK JACKET.