Reviews: The “Bell(e)” of Near Eastern Archaeology - The BAS Library
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Reviews: The “Bell(e)” of Near Eastern Archaeology

Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations

Georgina Howell
(New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007), 512 pp., 16 pp. illus., $27.50 (hardcover)

The book under review is the most recent of numerous biographies of Gertrude L. Bell (1868–1926), one of the most famous (British) women of her generation. It is admittedly difficult to do justice to Bell’s many achievements, which include an excellent translation of Persian poetry, some of the best travel writing, exploration, archaeology, cartography, ethnography and, last but not least, politics. But Georgina Howell (known for her books and articles on fashion) presents a version of Bell’s life more hagiographic than biographic; the author admits that Bell is “my heroine,” extending her adulation to Bell’s step-mother, and subscribes unconditionally […]

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Endnotes

1.

E. Gran-Amyrich, “Jane Dieulafoy, 1851–1916,” in G.M. Cohen and M.J. Joukowsky, eds., Breaking Ground: Pioneering Women Archaeologists (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Press, 2004; paperback edition 2006), pp. 34–67.

2.

J.M. Asher-Greve, “Gertrude L. Bell (1868–1926),” in Cohen and Joukowsky, eds., Breaking Ground, pp. 142–197.

3.

Bell’s diaries and letters to her family are published on the Web site: www.gerty.ncl.ac.uk.