Jerusalem: The Biography

* The twenty-five-year-old American Lowell Thomas of Colorado made his fortune launching Last Crusade, a travelling show that told the legendary adventures of ‘Lawrence of Arabia’. A million people saw it in London alone and even more in America. Lawrence despised and loved it, watching the show five times. ‘I saw your show and thank god the lights were out,’ he wrote. ‘He’s invented some silly phantom thing, a matinee idol in fancy dress.’ Lawrence finished his memoirs, using that old title, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, a creamily baroque yet poetical work that was a mix of history, confession and mythology – ‘I prefer lies to truth, particularly where they concern me,’ he joked. Yet for all its faults it is surely a masterpiece. Afterwards, Lawrence changed his name, joined the air force and retired into obscurity, dying in a motorcycle accident in 1935.