A major new biography that provides readers with the first nuanced portrait of one of this century's most daring and enigmatic adventurers. T. E. Lawrence began his role in World War I as a map clerk and ended it as one of the greatest military heroes of the century. He altered the face of the Middle East, helped the Arabs gain their freedom, and formulated many of the precepts of modern guerrilla warfare. But he refused any honors and spent the rest of his life in near obscurity.A brilliant propagandist, rhetorician, and manipulator, Lawrence deliberately turned his life into a conundrum, thereby assuring his place as a mythical cult-figure for posterity. But who was the real man behind the masks? Desert explorer and Arab scholar Michael Asher set out to solve this riddle of appearances. The result--a biography combining the techniques of the detective story, travelogue, epic history, and high drama--clears away some of the false trails and captures the authentic atmosphere of the Arab Revolt.