Foreign News: Uncrowned King

WITH LAWRENCE IN ARABIA—Lowell Thomas—Century ($4.00). This is an age when romantic adventure is supposed to be dead. Yet, not ten years ago, Thomas E. Lawrence, young Oxford graduate, archeologist and poet, entered Arabia on leave from irksome military duties in Cairo and left that country some years later—the “uncrowned King of Arabia.” For sheer romanticism, coupled with history-making events, surrounded by names which moved the whole world not so long ago, the story that Mr. Thomas has written about Arabia and Colonel Lawrence has not been surpassed during the present century.

At a time when recent events have shaken Arabia from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf (see THE HEJAZ), the publication of this book cannot alone be described as apposite, but as an extremely useful exposition of Arabia’s fight for independence which brings the reader virtually to the door of yesterday’s events.