“Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World”, by Hugh Pope

432 pages, Overlook Press, ISBN-13: 978-1585676415

Hugh Pope's Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World provides the Western reader a glimpse into a different reality of world history. Under-emphasized and under-represented in any history curriculum at any Western university, this work presents to the reader facts and events of pan-Turkic and central Asian history and culture that have had little currency, recognition or understanding in the West. Comparatively speaking, the history and culture of East Asia – Chinese history, Japanese history, Korean history and the history of Southeast Asia – are much better taught and understood in the West than the history of the Turkic peoples in central Asia. A major strength (but also the major weakness) of Pope's work is his concentration on Turkey and Turkish history and culture, especially the Ottoman period and 20^th Century, post-Ataturk Turkey. This is understandable because Pope has clearly spent more time, done more research and has more knowledge of Turkey than of the other pan-Turkish cultures of central Asia. In Sons of the Conquerors Pope does not limit himself to documenting Turkey. Instead, he has attempted to bring in the many central Asian nations associated with pan-Turkic culture, i.e., Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc. As a reader, I would have liked to see more equal time spent on the cultures of these central Asian nations, many of them newly minted from the breakup of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s. Among these, Uzbekistan is slightly favored with extra time. In addition, Pope gives short shrift to Turkic peoples living within today's post-Soviet Russia, i.e., Tatars and the Buryats to name two groups. This is a good read, especially for someone reading about Turkic history for the first time. However, the serious student will need more than is presented here, especially about the central Asian pan-Turkic peoples.

“Lawrence of Arabia: The Authorized Biography of T.E. Lawrence”, by Jeremy Wilson

1188 pages, Athenaeum, ISBN-13: 978-0689119347

The hero of David Lean's cinematic masterpiece of 1962 is unforgettable to anyone who has seen this marvelous movie, and in this volume Jeremy Wilson attempts a meticulous, factual biography of T. E. Lawrence. His book provides a less romantic portrayal of Lawrence, who, though he remains a towering and distinctive personality, emerges as a tragic hero, as the movie suggests.

Wilson shows Lawrence's many compromises with the diplomatic maneuverings of Britain and France and the it affects on his conscience. Another interesting chapter of Lawrence's life (not shown in the movie) is his own writings. This book explains the context in which Lawrence's own work, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, came into being (a book Lawrence himself did not like after he learned that good writing is clear writing). I wouldn't have – and a lot of you reading this review, either – come to this book without having seem the movie, so I would like to mention some things that the movie was wrong about, according to this book. 

1) T. E. Lawrence did have to execute an Arab with his pistol, but he DID feel remorse about it and did NOT experience a perverse pleasure at it.

2) He was not homosexual; in fact, he asked a girl to marry him, who turned him down (it wasn’t unusual in that era that an educated Englishman still be a virgin in his mid-20’s, and the only reason he stayed a virgin until his death in his 40’s was that he was raped by those Turks, as is obliquely referred to in the movie, and as a consequence was tragically repulsed by physical human contact thereafter. So he became, as he himself described it, “a lay monk”).

While there have been several other books on Lawrence, this one easily is one that serves as the basic reference, and which looks at other biographies, some of which questions Lawrence's own accounts of his life. In one of two appendices, for example, Wilson takes up a controversy surrounding the veracity of Lawrence's claim and torture at Deraa (which is strongly hinted in the scene in the movie where Lawrence is tortured by his Turkish captors). 

A first-rate book for anyone interested in the heroic Laurence, which I say heroic because after taking Aquaba, he was up for a Victoria's Cross, England's highest military honor, but as he needed an English witness to the event, when only Arabs witnessed it, he didn’t receive such a prestigious decoration – and Lawrence didn’t care. He perhaps, then, wasn't as vain as the movie portrayed him to be, either.

“Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales (First Printing, Commemorative Edition)”, by H.P. Lovecraft, Edited by Stephen Jones, Illustrated by Les Edwards

880 pages, Gollancz, ISBN-13: 978-0575081574

Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales is a great place to start if you're new to Lovecraft. It's a hefty book, and the leather binding has so far held up to my bedside abuse. I was seduced by the promise of illustrations, but they seem to be merely a set of proprietary clip-art stamped onto stories with marginal regard to relevance. A few editorial/typographical misses, while the quality paper and typesetting make for easy reading. I've enjoyed the included essay on Lovecraft as it's an enjoyable refresher for HPL fans and an interesting primer for newcomers. The pages it consumes, however, still don’t offer much expanded coverage of HPL's oeuvre.

In my opinion, most (if not all) of his best tales are included, which is why I don't regret the purchase. I do, though, regret the general lack of a deluxe edition of Lovecraft's work more suited to the title of this omnibus, e.g. a thick faux-flesh binding like The Evil Dead commemorative DVD set. Gimmicky, yeah, but what a conversation piece!

The market is ripe for a lovingly crafted edition with relevant placement of the best of Lovecraft artists, annotations, and definitely a pronunciation and glossary appendix! My vocabulary has expanded since I first read HPL as a teenager, but I'm still tripping on some of his archaisms.