Syria, the Desert and the Sown

Gertrude Bell's 1907 work Syria, The Desert and the Sown is travel literature of the highest order. She wanted to tell the stories of the people she met on her tremendous adventure through an often-misunderstood land. She found the inhabitants of Syria diverse and incredibly accepting of such diversity. One man could walk down the street veiled, while another could be almost entirely unclothed, and neither would cause an uproar. Her observations are, perhaps, unbelievable to modern readers,...