Janet Wallach

Recounts the life of Gertrude Bell, an Englishwoman adventurer in the style of Beryl Markham and Isak Dinesen, who explored parts of the Arab world around the time of World War I and helped create the modern Middle East. 25,000 first printing.

The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell, Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia

Desert Queen

the life and times of Hetty Green

The richest woman in America

The true story of socialite spy Marguerite Harrison, who slipped behind enemy lines in Russia and Germany in the fraught period between the world wars Foreign correspondent. Author. Filmmaker. Spy. Marguerite Harrison was born into Gilded Age American privilege and launched a successful career as a culture writer for the Baltimore Sun as a young widow. But when America entered World War I, Harrison secretly applied for a position in intelligence. She was sent undercover into Germany after the armistice. With her society connections and gift for languages, Harrison delivered reports of mounting tensions and the growing power of the German right, and returned home an unsung heroine. Harrison next fought for an intelligence posting in the newly formed Soviet Union. Posing as a reporter sympathetic to the Communist cause, she entered the USSR and was soon caught and jailed as a spy. Set the terrifying task of becoming a double agent for the Soviets, she strove to remain loyal to America. In both places, Harrison saw the future --a second war with Germany, a cold war with the Soviets--and was little believed back home. Janet Wallach captures Harrison's daring and glamour in this stranger-than-fiction history of a socialite drawn to the impossible.

The Mysterious Life of Marguerite Harrison, Socialite Spy

Flirting with Danger

A fictional portrait of Aimâee Dubucq, who was kidnapped at the age of thirteen and placed in a Turkish harem, traces her relationships with several powerful sultans and her place as an influential woman in the Ottoman Empire.

Seraglio

The best-selling author of Desert Queen traces the story of the turn-of-the-20th-century tycoon that offers insight into her abandonment by her mother, the Quaker values that marked her life, and the brash investment practices that caused her to be heralded and denounced by those who knew her.

Hetty Green in the Gilded Age

The Richest Woman in America

John Wallach

The Wallachs have had extensive access to Arafat, his relatives, colleagues, and close advisers. They have spent hundreds of hours with key personalities in the Middle East, including Arafat's Palestinian supporters as well as his opponents, and with the leaders of the key Middle Eastern nations involved in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In the Eyes of the Beholder

Arafat

Chronicles the life and career of the French designer, highlighting her innovative approach to design based on her knowledge of women and their clothing needs

Her Style and Her Life

Chanel

This “richly textured biography” (Chicago Tribune) inspired the mesmerizing documentary, Letters from Baghdad, soon to air on public television. Here is the story of Gertrude Bell, who explored, mapped, and excavated the Arab world throughout the early twentieth century. Recruited by British intelligence during World War I, she played a crucial role in obtaining the loyalty of Arab leaders, and her connections and information provided the brains to match T. E. Lawrence's brawn. After the war, she played a major role in creating the modern Middle East and was, at the time, considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire. In this masterful biography, Janet Wallach shows us the woman behind these achievements–a woman whose passion and defiant independence were at odds with the confined and custom-bound England she left behind. Too long eclipsed by Lawrence, Gertrude Bell emerges at last in her own right as a vital player on the stage of modern history, and as a woman whose life was both a heartbreaking story and a grand adventure.

Der weibliche Lawrence von Arabien: Gertrude Bell, die ungekrönte Königin des Orients, war eine der interessantesten, vielseitigsten und beeindruckendsten Frauen zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Eigenwillig, wissbegierig und wagemutig bereiste die Tochter wohlhabender Engländer die arabische Welt und wurde bald zu einer gefragten Nahostexpertin. Im Ersten Weltkrieg bestinformierte britische Agentin im arabischen Raum und Vorkämpferin für die arabische Unabhängigkeit, hatte sie unter anderem großen Anteil an der Gründung des modernen Irak. Die abenteuerliche Lebensgeschichte dieser ungewöhnlichen Frau hat Regisseur Werner Herzog jetzt mit Nicole Kidman in der Hauptrolle verfilmt.

Janet Wallach

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