New Review

The latest New York Review of Books has an article on Gertrude Bell, the British woman who was appointed as the senior political officer in British-run Basra, Iraq, from 1916 to 1926. Bell was an "Arabist," who threw herself headlong into the Middle East, its peoples and its culture. She's even buried in Baghdad (NPR reported on the state of her grave here this summer.)

The article is written by Rory Stewart, author of The Prince of the Marshes, about his year as deputy governer of a province in southern Iraq during the current occupation, and The Places in Between, about his trip on foot across Afghanistan in 2002.--David E