By host Tom Ashbrook:

“Iraq is a trap,” wrote the legendary Arabist T.E. Lawrence. “The people were tricked into going there.” “We are not far from disaster.” “It will be hard to escape with dignity and honor.”

Suddenly, in 2005, everyone is quoting Lawrence of Arabia from 1920. American soldiers and generals are reading his “Seven Pillars of Wisdom.” American pundits are lifting lines from his report for Winston Churchill on Imperial Britain’s Iraqi misadventure. And a newly- discovered map in London shows how Lawrence himself might have carved up the Middle East.

But before David Lean and Peter O’Toole and America’s own Iraq challenge, there was the man and myth of the white-robed hero of the desert.

Hear about the lessons in life and the Iraq desert from Lawrence of Arabia.

Guests:

Jeremy Wilson, author of “Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography.”;
David Fromkin, Professor of International Relations at BU and author of “Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East.”;
Penny Ritchie Calder, Head of Exhibitions, London’s Imperial War Museum.