THE WOMAN MOST LIKELY TO REDRAW THE MAP OF THE MIDDLE EAST

Desert Queen by Janet Wallach - Anchor Books (2005)

There have been few historical periods more repressive to female liberty than the English Victorian Era. Contrary to the popular notion that gender equality progresses along a linear trajectory, the Victorian Era in England witnessed a dramatic restriction in opportunities for women. Part of this had to do with the dwindling value of royal blood. Whereas a Republican or Parliamentary government can simply elect an unrelated male to fill a vacated seat, a government based on royal blood might choose to allow a female to rule as Regent or Sovereign rather than paddle beyond the immediate gene pool—as in the case of Elizabeth I. Despite the continuance of the English monarchy under Queen Victoria, commoners during the late nineteenth-century were finally allowed to nourish their own political ambitions, and the marginal space for females within government was further diminished. This is not to dismiss the powerful voices of discontent which did emerge under austere social conditions. Outstanding, resilient women such as George Egerton, Vernon Lee, and Charlotte Mew certainly did what they could to push conventional boundaries (for a comprehensive anthology, read Daughters of Decadence - Virago (1993)). But the pressure placed upon women to maintain the household and produce enough Englishmen to rule the ever-expanding British empire, made the choice to remain unmarried a somewhat treasonous act. Admittance to the domestic and political spheres was rigidly policed and gender-exclusive. Gertrude Bell was just one of many women whose loyalty to the English crown sometimes came into conflict with her desire for independence and her allegiance to the people of the Middle East. Desert Queen, Janet Wallach’s eye-opening account of Bell’s efforts to establish an independent Arab kingdom in Iraq, is a must-read for anyone whose conception of the Middle East begins with the Gulf War. Alongside the modern image of Iraq as a dusty wasteland, Wallach presents the cosmopolitan city of Baghdad as it must have appeared to Gertrude Bell—a city where an ambitious woman could have her say, live on her own, and discuss the future of the Arab world with leading Sheikhs and Emirs.  

Janet Wallach is the author of nine books, including Seraglio: A Novel, and Chanel: Her Style and Her Life. She has also co-authored several books, including Arafat: In the Eyes of the Beholder, and The New Palestinians. Wallach is deeply committed to rehabilitating the soiled reputations of prominent politicians and intellectuals in the Middle East. As a frequent contributor to The Washington Post and The Smithsonian Magazine, Wallach has produced in-depth profiles of Queen Noor of Jordan, Iraqi Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon, and Saudi entrepreneur Adnan Khashoggi, among others. With her husband John, Wallach co-founded Seeds of Peace, a nonprofit organization committed to building bridges of communication between young thinkers from conflict zones around the world. Every year, gifted teenagers are brought to a Summer camp in Maine where they discuss their shared interests, reservations, and plans for the future. Thus far, Seeds of Peace graduates have included citizens from Israel, Palestine, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and America. The organization won a UNESCO peace prize in 2000. 

Desert Queen is Wallach’s most successful book to date. Since its initial publication in 1996, the book has been translated into twelve languages and was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Its popularity is owed, in part, to Gertrude Bell’s friendship with Lawrence of Arabia and her familiarity as the inspiration behind the movie Queen of the Desert. But Bell’s international fame does not entirely account for Wallach’s commercial success. Desert Queen is a comprehensive, vividly-rendered example of documentary research at its best. Wallach somehow manages to stuff a lifetime of private correspondence, local interactions, and international negotiations into a single volume, without abandoning her reader to a tidal wave of information. Proust might scoff in his mouldering coffin, but the average reader will applaud Wallach’s remarkable ability to organize data in a concise, logical manner. 

Wallach’s biography can be described as a collection of lists. Gertrude Bell achieved so much during her lifetime, that the only way to accurately reflect her importance is to rattle of a list of accomplishments and responsibilities. This narrative technique is applied early on when Wallach writes, 

…none could deny her achievements: the first woman to earn a first-class degree in Modern History at Oxford; the author of seven books, scores of articles in publications that ranged from academic journals to the pages of The Times, and a White Paper considered to be a masterpiece by the British Government. She was the only woman to earn the grade of Political Officer during the Great War and the only woman after the war to be named to the high post of Oriental Secretary; the winner of the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society; the honorary director of antiquities at the Baghdad museum; and the recipient of a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. 

The semi-colon shines in all its glory in Wallach’s account. In fact, there is no better punctuation to emphasize Bell’s vigor and determination. Whether Wallach is discussing Bell’s scholarly ambitions, or her responsibilities as a British official in post-WWI Iraq, a percussive, rapid-fire delivery seems to be the best approach:

She wanted to inform the English of the ways of the East. She would tell them about the Arab world and its culture: its people, Bedouin tribesmen and educated townsmen; its language, flowery and circuitous; its manners, both primitive and polished; its delicate art; its intricate architecture; its history of holy wars and conquests; its literature filled with symbolism and poetry; its politics fraught with internecine rivalries and tribal revenge; its religion of Islam; its waling music; its food staples of flat bread and yogurt; its commerce of bazaar merchants and international traders; its agriculture of wheat farming and camel grazing; its oil-rich sand; its terrain of palm trees, incidental water and endless desert. 

Wallach’s style of writing is breathless and rapturous. It is also perfectly calibrated to the experience of a single woman exploring the ‘mystical Orient’ during the golden age of British imperialism. We see the Middle East as a fertile cultural oasis, bursting with spiritual and material possibilities. It is beautiful, and poetic, and draped in ancient symbolism. It is also glittering with natural wealth, and one can almost sympathize with the Western industrialists salivating over the promise of an oil-drenched paradise. Wallach is careful to remind modern readers of the British perspective during the Victorian Era. Appropriating the bombastic rhetoric of conquest, Wallach writes, 

The greatest empire of all time, the one that stretched over a greater amount of ocean, covered a greater amount of land, contained a greater number of people than any before it, was the British Empire of Queen Victoria. Her superpower left its mark on continents and subcontinents, from Europe to Australia to India to America to Africa to Asia, from Adelaide to Wellington, Bombay to Rangoon, Ottawa to the Virgin Islands, Alexandria to Zanzibar, Aden to Singapore. The British navy ruled the seas, British coal fueled the ships and industries, British bankers financed the businesses, British merchants ran the trade, British food fed the stomachs and British factories clothed the bodies of one fourth of all human beings who lived and worked and played in every corner of the world. 

Within this Anglo-centric vision of the world—a world ruled and governed by one tiny, damp island—the role for British females was not open for negotiation. They were, quite literally, the producers of empire. And ‘empire,’ during the Victorian age, was not defined by the same negative terms as it is today. Writes Wallach,

They took pride in the British Empire and its role as custodian of the universe. Whether in the huge and all-important colony of India or on some tiny island in the Caribbean, the British believed it was their duty to protect the natives, uphold the trade, spread morality and defend the territory. If the British did not do it, they assumed, someone else would, and no one—not the Germans, not the French, certainly not the Russians…could ever do it as well. Theirs was a world run by men of initiative, courage and conviction. It was a world graced by women who, in their domesticity, were no less than the guardians of the English race. 

Only through a detailed examination of Victorian mentality can Wallach underscore the extent of Gertrude Bell’s bravery. Not only did Bell choose a life of independence—thereby neglecting her patriotic duty to reproduce—but she also allowed for the gradual dismantling of an entrenched superiority complex. When Bell first arrived in the Middle East, she thought of the native population as most Westerners did—as heathens in need of guidance and protection. After living for years in Baghdad and Cairo, riding alone through the desert to meet with prominent tribal leaders, organizing an Arab revolt against the Ottoman Turks, negotiating the political status and geographical boundaries of the Middle East after the conclusion of WWI, traveling to Paris for the 1919 Peace Conference, and working with Prince Faisal to consolidate an Arab Kingdom in Iraq, her opinions had changed. It can be nearly impossible for a person to change her opinions when racial superiority is a factor. There is little room for cooperation when one side considers the other to be inherently incapable of self-rule. If the relationship between one country and another retains a paternal flavor, little can be accomplished. Burdened with the historical legacy of British arrogance, it is truly remarkable that Gertrude Bell was able listen to her Arab contacts with such an open mind. Wallach celebrates this unprecedented diplomatic accomplishment when she writes, 

[Bell’s] ideas had turned almost one hundred and eighty degrees from where they had been before her trip. She had gone from believing the Arabs could never rule themselves to seeing them govern themselves in Syria. She had gone from denying the notion that there is an Arab nation comprised of one Arab people to seeing the fervor of Arab nationalism in Palestine and in Syria. She had gone from assuming that Britain must stay in control to recognizing the need for it to cede considerable authority.

Having survived such a destabilizing intellectual metamorphosis, it makes sense that Gertrude took pride in Prince Faisal’s simple, offhanded description of her as an ‘Iraqi.’ The title ‘Desert Queen,’ a reference to Bell’s Arabic nickname, is not really an accurate reflection of her diplomatic attitude. In her fantastic, list-filled biography, Janet Wallach makes it clear that Gertrude Bell was ready to leave behind any imperial baggage that couldn’t be carried by a camel. 

Penguin author profile

Seeds of Peace website

THE DIPLOMAT MOST LIKELY TO FACE ACCUSATIONS OF TREASON FROM THREE DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS

Our Man in Charleston by Christopher Dickey - Broadway Books (2015)

Have you ever found yourself surrounded by strangers whose opinions differ strongly from your own? Have you ever walked through a city knowing that if the people shuffling past could peer inside your mind, you might be arrested and hanged for treason? Have you ever been forced to reconcile your warm feelings towards a friend with an irrepressible hatred of his values? Such is the life of a diplomat. As representatives of a foreign governmental body, these individuals often find themselves immersed in a culture they neither recognize nor accept. In order to serve as an effective intermediary, they must socialize with those they find morally repellant. They must at least profess to share interests with leading politicians and intellectuals—even if such interests are carefully restricted to the economic sphere. If a diplomat chooses to vocalize his own beliefs, he can burn the bridge of communication between his host and his nation—and risk being abandoned by both. A diplomatic career is rarely relaxing. 

But those who find a way to survive amongst their enemies, who know how to alleviate paranoia from all sides and maintain treacherous avenues of communication, are some of the most gifted, insightful individuals passing through the world. They learn how to read subtle changes in expression, how to suggest outcomes without making promises, and how to appear open-minded and willing to negotiate even when their stomachs boil with anger and disgust. Robert Bunch, the British consul stationed in Charleston during the early years of the American Civil War, was adept at befriending and manipulating the powerful planation-owners of the South. During his time in South Carolina, he somehow managed to convince the Federal Government in Washington, the volatile Southern ‘Fire-eaters’ screaming for secession, and the distant British Crown, that he was definitely on their side. Christopher Dickey’s incredible biography Our Man in Charleston tells the story of how Robert Bunch survived the collapse of the Union without compromising his humanist beliefs. 

Christopher Dickey has written several books on international politics and the evolving relationships between competing nations. His quick, factually-dense style of writing stems from his experience as a foreign correspondent and internationally-renowned journalist. Now serving as the world news editor for The Daily Beast, Dickey has also worked as the Central American foreign corespondent for The Washington Post, and the Middle East foreign corespondent for Newsweek. He has reported from multiple war zones, including those in Central America, the Balkans, Africa, and the Middle East. Dickey’s articles and essays have appeared in such publications as Foreign Policy Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, and Vanity Fair. He frequently appears as an expert commentator on MSNBC, CNN, BBC, and Al Jazeera. 

Having lived in hostile territories, having earned the trust of wary individuals, Dickey understands the challenges a diplomat might encounter in a foreign nation on the brink of war. His empathy for the British consul in Charleston encourages the reader to hope for Bunch’s eventual salvation. As the dreams of a Confederate State began to gain traction in the South, Bunch found himself surrounded by fanatics and white supremacists. Dickey skillfully builds suspense by emphasizing the mounting urgency of Bunch’s situation. As the book progresses, Bunch overcomes threats to his personal safety, accusations from the North and South, ridicule from the British Foreign Office in London, and the likely possibility of his being stranded in a new Southern nation, cut-off from the Crown and the more moderate thinkers in America. The image that comes to mind when I think of the narrative progression of Dickey’s book is the scene in Star Wars Episode IV—A New Hope in which Luke, Leia and Han Solo are trapped in a trash compactor while the walls are closing in and a tentacled monster is slithering through the rubbish. Bunch hated South Carolina almost as soon as he arrived in the muggy metropolis, but it wasn’t until the walls started moving and he was forced to wade among the monsters that things really began to look dire. 

Bunch was first sent to Charleston after his predecessor invoked the ire of the Southern planters. Consul Matthew was tasked with bringing about the abolition of the Negro Seaman Act. This law allowed Carolinian policemen to imprison free negro sailors because their presence was seen as a threat to the established social order. The ominous specter of a ‘servile insurrection’ was the white minority’s greatest fear. The British government, which abolished slavery in 1833, had been vocal in its opposition to the slave trade. From a purely economic standpoint, the British navy was greatly inconvenienced every time the freeing of a sailor delayed a transatlantic journey. Sometimes the sailors were ‘accidentally’ sold into slavery and never recovered. Bunch was sent to Charleston to clean up the mess caused by Matthew, whose blustery personality offended leading Carolinians, and whose audacity in sending a letter to Washington asking that the Supreme Court take legal action against South Carolina resulted in his social isolation. Writes Dickey, 

Intentionally or not, Matthew’s tone-deaf handling of what was referred to in correspondence as “the coloured seamen issue” threw into relief the qualities that a man might need to survive as British consul in a place as prone to outrage as Charleston. Any official who hoped to achieve Her Majesty’s ends there must be capable of a more delicate touch, with more savoir faire, more social awareness. To live among the slave-owning planters and make inroads into their society, charming them while never forgetting the core interests of the Crown, required a man with a special background and demeanor…

Robert Bunch had such a demeanor. He knew how to sever his public life from his private one. He know how to communicate without giving too much away. He knew how to remain influential without being conspicuous. Writes Dickey, 

As with many diplomats and spies—who are also functionaries and bureaucrats—Robert Bunch had to try to protect his back as he moved through the maze of duplicity he’d constructed around himself. He did not report everything he did…but he tried to report enough to cover himself if he was caught out. At the same time he constantly tried to read the winds of opinion among his superiors. If he had an inkling that, despite his best secret dispatches, London was inclined to go ahead with recognition of the Confederacy…then he needed to prepare the way for his future. Bunch had principles, but he had to remain in place if he was going to effect them. 

During his time in Charleston, Bunch frequently had to clear the middle-ground between Britain’s moral responsibilities, and its economic interests. The British government promised to send a fleet of warships to guard the African coast, but American smugglers were constantly evading capture and refusing inspection under the protection of the American flag. In an effort to slow the alarming rate of American growth and to satisfy influential abolitionists within the British government, Great Britain emerged as the loudest anti-slavery voice in the industrial world. On the other hand, much of their own economic power depended upon cotton imported from the slave-owning Southern states. Writes Dickey, 

[Charleston] was the epicenter of all the contradictions that London, whatever its passions, found difficult to face. England hated slavery but loved the cotton the slaves raised, and British industry depended on it. Defending Britain’s political interests while serving its commercial interests required constant delicate diplomacy, even in the most informal settings. 

Bunch and his counterparts in Washington, Philadelphia, and London tried to think of a way for Britain to sustain its textile industry without overtly supporting the slave trade. Perhaps they could convince the Southern States to stop importing slaves from Africa, but allow them to cultivate their own. This idea attracted the wealthy planters of Virginia who had raised successive generations of American slaves and were afraid that a flooded slave market would reduce the value of their product. Unfortunately, the push to claim the newly opened Western frontier for the Southern states necessitated a huge population of slaves, and the Virginians simply could not satisfy demand. Another idea was for Britain to grow cotton in some of its other territories—like Egypt or Ceylon—over which it could exert greater control. The downside of this plan was that it would take years for the first crop to grow and for trade networks to be established, and the British economy—so reliant upon the cotton manufacturers in the North—might collapse in the meantime. If the British were no longer able to trade their textiles for silks and teas in the colonies, the whole international economy could break down one trade agreement at a time. The contradictions in British foreign policy were overshadowed only by the hypocrisies of the Southern elite. Every day, Bunch had to brave,

…a palpable undercurrent of fear and mistrust [that] filled what could seem at first a languorous city with a grating, omnipresent tension. From the first few weeks of what eventually became a decade spent in Charleston, Bunch was deeply disturbed by the mixtures of arrogance and fear, cruelty and luxury, piety and hypocrisy that were so deeply ingrained in Southern culture. He tried to look at it all with detached irony, but even in his private letters to his superiors…there were times when the irony, which he could not show publicly, became very bitter indeed on the pages of correspondence marked private and confidential. 

Perhaps he should have been less detached. Perhaps he should have paraded a few of his private opinions before the public eye. Robert Bunch turned out to be such a wonderful spy, that he lost the trust of Washington. From the perspective of Abraham Lincoln and Assistant Secretary of State William Seward, Bunch had ‘gone native.’ He was now a Confederate sympathizer and an enemy of the Union. Bunch, whose geographical distance from London made communication with the Foreign Office slow and unreliable, had to battle suspicions from three sides. The Lincoln administration suspected him of advocating for the Secessionists with the British government. The British government accused him of recklessness when content from his private letters leaked into the American press. The fire-eaters suspected anyone who wasn’t a confirmed fire-eater of being a spy for Lincoln. Bunch found himself in an impossible situation, which Dickey describes as, 

…full of ironies. Robert Bunch, who had worked so hard for so long for the “disentanglement” of Britain from the cotton-growing South, now suddenly became the symbol of secret and supposedly growing ties between the Confederacy and the Crown…The greatest irony was that he had done his job too well, earning the trust of people he despised in order to report honestly and accurately to Her Majesty’s government.

Contrary to most other historical figures, a good spy is measured by how much of his work is ultimately forgotten. Diplomats are unable to achieve much when they are the subject of public scrutiny and speculation. Perhaps the most accomplished representatives are the ones known only by the results they help to orchestrate. If a diplomat can make a carefully manipulated plan appear to unfold organically, he can consider his job well done. A good spy is not a man, but a shadow. This is why Christopher Dickey’s concluding remarks—which would seem depressing in any other biography—stand proud and erect as the greatest testament to Robert Bunch’s remarkable diplomatic success:

Bunch had helped to change the course of history; he had fought secretly but relentlessly against the cruel lunacy of slavery that surrounded him and that threatened to drag the wide world into America’s war; he had defended the humanity of black men and women who were treated no better than animals. And yet he, Robert Bunch, had been forgotten. 

Evidently, as Our Man in Charleston shows, even those who are forgotten can bask in their allotted fifteen minutes of posthumous fame. 

NYT book review

Christopher Dickey's Civil War blog

Christopher Dickey's article archive for 'The Daily Beast'

THE MAN MOST LIKELY TO HEED THE CALL OF THE WILD

Elephant Company by Vicki Constantine Croke - Random House (2014)

There are very few things I care more about than the humane treatment of animals. I am not one to smear my naked body with red paint and dance around in front of the Supreme Court, and I like chicken nuggets as much as the next millennial. That being said, I do think that the verbal barriers which exist between animals and humans do not necessarily prohibit all forms of communication. Ask any pet-lover whether or not she believes animals to be capable of complex emotional responses and the answer will always be a resolute ‘yes’. Speaking from my own experiences, there are certain emotional needs that only animals can fill. Chester, my sprightly, overly-affectionate marshmallow of a feline, provides a therapeutic relief from the pressures of constant verbal communication. He takes me as I am—shortcomings, failures, embarrassments, vices and all. All I need to do is make sure he gets his daily rub and never spies the bottom of his food bowl—a sure sign of impending starvation. He expects nothing of me, so I never have to feel like I’m letting him down. Much as I love my friends and family, the pressure to make them proud and provide them with ample love and support can sometimes feel like suffocation to a natural recluse. The inexplicable bond between humans and animals—and here lets assume we’re speaking of creatures a bit more advanced than your average banana slug—is one of the most vital sources of happiness in my life. Perhaps this is why Vicki Constantine Croke’s delicate book Elephant Company poked me right in the center of my gooey heart. Croke’s biography of Billy Williams, a British ‘forest man’ who cared for elephants in Burma during the second world war, is sensitive and insightful to the highest degree. It is a war biography that celebrates the most innocent of creatures. The inevitable consequence of this peculiar focus is that the contrast between the noble giants of the Burmese forest and the bloodthirsty humans in their midst is as sharp and distinct as the Chinese symbol for duality. 

Published in 2014, Elephant Company quickly became an international bestseller and was listed among The New York Times ‘100 notable books’ of that year. Croke’s work with animals, however, began long before she decided to try her hand at long-form nonfiction. She wrote The Boston Globe’s ‘Animal Beat’ column for thirteen years, worked on several nature documentaries for Disney and A&E, and is a regular contributor to such publications as Popular Science, Time, The New York Times, National Wildlife, and Gourmet. For more than two decades, Croke has dedicated her life to tracking and preserving vulnerable species like the polar bear, the Tasmanian devil, and the fossa (some kind of vicious weasel-cat native to Madagascar). She has been honored with both a regional Edward R. Murrow Award, and a Public Radio News Directors Award. She is an energetic activist, notable for her efforts to raise awareness for the plight of the giant panda. She is also a brilliant historian, whose efforts to understand the values and beliefs motivating her subjects is commendable. Perhaps it is easy for her to embody Billy Williams because she also knows that the uncomplicated warmth of another creature can save a person from disappointment and despair when faced with the shadowy side of human nature. Croke believes that she and Williams share a deep respect for animals, a sentiment she makes explicit in the introduction to her book:

Williams had witnessed a life among the elephants that would be hard for those outside to fathom—in fact, he reported behaviors that many would not believe until they were validated decades later by biologists in the field. He had seen these creatures thoughtfully solve problems, use tools, protect one another, express joy and humor, stand up for something more important than their own safety, and even, perhaps, comprehend the concept of death. There was a largeness to them that was about more than their physical size, a quality triggered especially when their sense of decency or outrage was provoked. 

Any author who writes a book set during wartime, no matter what their intended subject may be, ends up writing about war. When nations face-off across geographical and ideological boundaries, it can be easy to draw rigid lines between distinct groups—to see one’s enemy as another species. Even today, many Americans struggle to identify commonalities between themselves and those fighting a ‘holy war’ in the Middle East. Rather than admit that there are some fundamental attributes we all share as humans—as animals—we prefer to stick labels on one another and recline comfortably in our own La-Z-Boys of superiority. So while Croke is writing about a British man and a herd of Burmese elephants, she is also writing about the communicative gulf that grows between unfamiliar creatures. If we were able to approach other people as we are sometimes able to approach animals, if we marveled at our shared attributes and accepted the limited scope of communication, how many horrifying historical episodes might have been avoided? The persecution of Jews, the enslavement of Africans, the alienation of Muslims in the West, have all been rationalized in part by the belief that we are different from them and can never coexist. Thus, while some might claim that Croke’s book is a distraction from the harsh reality of war, it is in fact directly applicable to the challenges of war when nations—and ideologies—struggle to communicate. 

Nonverbal communication is central to Billy Williams’s relationship with the Burmese elephants,  especially with a particular elephant named Bandoola. Bandoola and Williams do not need to speak the same language in order to understand each other. Writes Croke, 

Bandoola swiveled his trunk, pressing his nostrils to Williams, and breathing in deeply. Even through Williams’s clothing Bandoola was picking up organic clues, especially from the armpits and between the legs. Like all elephants, he was a master chemist, analyzing much of the world through his sensitive nose. Bandoola could ascertain innumerable facts about any animal: last meal eaten, fitness, anxiety level, or hormonal state. Elephants read one another—and people—this way. Bandoola’s prodigious brain, highly evolved to negotiate a complex social world, kept a dossier of the men and women around him, especially Williams, whom he had known for seven years. 

This detailed, almost erotic, description of the encounter between man and elephant is crucial to Croke’s underlying thesis. Bandoola is unable to tell Williams what he is feeling and vice versa, but they gather all the information they need through touch and observation. Again, the lessons contained within this brief scene can be liberally applied. To truly understand another creature, one must be in physical proximity to them. It is easy to reduce a man to his religious views or country of birth when an ocean separates you from him. Things get quite a bit more complicated when you meet him face to face and realize how nuanced and contradictory he really is. Part of the reason Croke is so successful a writer is because she refuses to gloss over the details. Each elephant is portrayed as an individual with singular characteristics. Each man benefits from a thoughtful, empirical consideration of what distinguishes his elephant from the others. Writes Croke, 

Williams ran his palms along the male’s spine: rough, wrinkled skin punctuated all over by harsh, wiry hairs. Sand and dirt, which had lodged in the folds of the tusker’s hide when he had dusted himself, loosened and rained down on Williams’s head and arms. It was an elephant baptism. 

Williams spent more than a decade working as a ‘forest man’ in the dense jungles of Burma before the war arrived at his doorstep. By that time, he had developed a productive, harmonious relationship with both the elephants who hauled the logs and their Burmese handlers. When the Japanese invaded Burma and the English teak companies began to evacuate, the future did not look bright for Williams and his elephants. Elephants were stolen under cover of darkness or brutally murdered in a sinister interpretation of the ‘scorched earth’ policy. Williams knew that if his superiors were forced to choose between saving British lives and saving a bunch of working elephants, they would choose the humans every time. So he made his elephants indispensable. The elephants now became ‘Elephant Company,’ a herd of highly trained war elephants who could clear the way for allied soldiers and build bridges in record time. Within a short period of time, Williams and his elephants became one of the most valuable units active within the strange battlefield of Burma. Writes Croke, 

Only a teak man understood the scope of their ability. Building anything could be a snap since they could act as cranes where no crane could be transported, deftly lifting logs into place at a height of nine or ten feet. They could tow vehicles bogged down in mud, or haul timber for boat construction at the major rivers. Most of all, the elephants could move the army farther and faster across undeveloped terrain by building bridges and enlarging tracks. Tanks and jeeps wouldn’t be thwarted by wide rivers and deep jungle.

It is incredible to think that while molecular physicists raced the build the first atomic bomb, elephants were dragging tanks through the hostile jungles of Burma. As the later conflict in Vietnam confirmed, modern weaponry does not always guarantee victory in the exotic, mysterious East. Having spent more than a decade surrounded by the alarmingly fertile Burmese foliage, Williams was uniquely able to assess the situation and address it efficiently. By the time the war reached Burma, Williams had completed his transformation into an ‘Elephant Man.’ Writes Croke,

All the things Williams had become acclimated to—the heat, the threat of disease, the terrain—were daunting and deadly to the new soldiers. They might hike across hot dry plains one day and then be mired in mud with fifteen inches of rain falling the next. Roads turned into rivers. Tracks became quagmires. After the rains came smothering heat and humidity that made their skin bloom with fungus and rot, and caused corpses to bloat and blacken.

Despite the alien environment, despite the natural obstacles threatening to trap a modern army within an ancient forest, Williams somehow managed to lead a herd of elephants across the border into India. The climax of this journey came when Williams and his men cut a stairway into the sheer side of a cliff and the elephants climbed—in single file, on ledges barely wider than their feet—to the top of a perilous escarpment. Looking over the dense jungle of Burma on one side, and the country of their salvation on the other, Williams experienced something close to transcendence:

Everything he had learned from elephants and about elephants was put to use in one stroke: All those lessons about trust, confidence, the meaning of leadership. The way they had always intuited his intentions. The fact that they could assess situations. That they were loyal. That their courage surpassed even their physical strength. 

Elephant Company is, despite the grim backdrop of world events, a thoroughly hopeful book. Vicki Constantine Croke’s love of animals is evident in her playful, affectionate tone, and her observations on the emotional complexity of elephants will strike a chord with anyone who has ever loved a fellow creature. Her insights into nonverbal communication are critically relevant to the atrocities of war escalating around Billy Williams and his elephants. Croke presents her readers with contrasting examples of evil and innocence, compassion and indifference. Elephant Company is, at its core, a lesson in finding common ground—in identifying the flickers of one’s own emotions in the eyes of a stranger. It is a book about touching, and watching, and seeking the good in others. It is a book about clinging to joy wherever it can be found. In the early days of WWII, Billy Williams made a deliberate choice of perspective, one I hope to replicate:

It was the same, and was never the same. This time, fuzzy-headed babies rolled over and over in the water, chasing one another with their tails sticking straight up in excitement. They still had so much hair it often looked in need of brushing. They planted themselves in the mud, or slid down the banks into the water, bulldozing each other and running with abandon despite the presence of two big bulls. 

Every human reader can learn a little something from these baby elephants: run, and play, and plan for the future, ‘despite the presence of two big bulls.’ 

NYT book review

'National Geographic' article on Billy Williams and his elephants

Vicki Constantine Croke's website

THE WOMAN MOST LIKELY TO MERGE PARTY POLITICS AND HIGH FASHION

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman - Modern Library (1998)

When Keira Knightley deems your life worthy of big-screen portrayal, you know you’ve done something right. The Duchess, a 2008 film directed by Saul Dibb and starring the principle bodice-ripping actress of our time, is a delicious, intoxicating medley of heavy breathing and smoldering eye-contact. After all, how can sex not be central to the cinematic examination of a family whose illegitimate children outnumbered its legitimate ones? This film will certainly leave you in need of a cold shower, but does it add anything new to the established historical narrative? Although I would bury the costume designer in ribbons and awards, I’m not sure whether the focus of the film reflects the priorities of the book upon which it is based.

Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire is a beautifully written glimpse into eighteenth-century English aristocratic society. Amanda Foreman, with her extensive collection of letters and private reflections, lays bare the touching, relatable, and often heartbreaking life of Lady Georgiana Spencer—the great-great-great-great aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales. But unlike the film it inspired, Foreman’s excellent biography does not exaggerate Georgiana’s scandalous love life at the expense of her other interests. In fact, if anything can be said to distract readers from Georgiana’s admirable political activism, it is her lifelong struggle with gambling addiction, which is painful and frustrating to read. At the end of the book—which coincides with the end of Georgiana’s life—the reader is left wondering what this extraordinary woman might have accomplished had she just been able to throw down her cards. 

Anyone who has ever struggled with addiction will recognize this tortuous trajectory. What might seem like an obvious solution to any rational reader becomes an insurmountable obstacle to a woman whose life progressed along a shifting track of evolving bets and games. Georgiana lost her fortune, her husband, and her children because she could never break loose from her creditors. Foreman drags readers from one slip to the next, emphasizing how each of Georgiana’s compromises and justifications laid down precedents for the next. In this biography we can see the whole scope of a lifelong addiction—from the early days of doubt and remorse, to the later days when even the sacrifice of one’s children can be rationalized and digested. We sympathize with Georgiana, but we also want to seize her by the shoulders and shake her. As readers, we feel helpless because we are unable to show Georgiana that the various costs of addiction—financial, social, and psychological—obliterate the fleeting satisfaction of a gambling high. Foreman understands the efficacy of this frustration as a literary device. She understands that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, readers will always hope for a happy ending. So we flip from disaster to disaster with an increasing sense of anxiety and a small, shameful nugget of hope. We are all—Georgiana included—trapped in an addictive loop of disappointment and desire. Foreman understands that the strength of these contradictory forces is potent fuel for any narrative and takes full advantage of the ping-pong dialectic between them. 

Published in 1998, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire was Foreman’s first book, based on the doctoral thesis she wrote at Oxford. The book was an international bestseller and reached number one in the UK as a hardcover and paperback. It was shortlisted for the 1998 Guardian First Book Prize, and won the prestigious Whitbread Prize for Best Biography. In the years following its publication, Georgiana inspired a television documentary, a radio play featuring Judi Dench, and the aforementioned film starring Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes. Part of Foreman’s remarkable success is owed to her courageous attempt to rehabilitate a ‘fallen aristocrat.’ Every reader loves a scandal—especially when it involves outrageous fortunes and fancy inherited titles. 

When the barriers of time and social protocol are set aside, Georgiana’s life story contains many of the same alluring components we find in modern tabloids. Comparing Georgiana’s complicated, adulterous family to the Kardashian family reveals the surprisingly consistent quality of celebrity culture. Whether we are talking about eighteenth-century lords and ladies, or twenty-first century social media gurus, the essential ingredients are the same: lots of money, public displays of social power, rivalries between warring aristocratic families, scandalous love affairs—especially within a single family—and an avid interest in pioneering new trends. We love to talk about these celebrities as though they are our intimate acquaintances. Now, trashy media vultures like Buzzfeed and E! feed our appetite for speculation, but eighteenth-century civilians were no more polite or respectful. Sir Joshua Reynolds, one of the leading Romantic painters and the first to understand the lucrative potential of public galleries, used to arrange his portraits in accordance with circulating gossip. If a certain lord was suspected of carrying on with a particular actress, their oil-painted eyes might meet across the gallery floor or their frozen hands might be separated by gilded frames and a few inches of wall. 

Georgiana Spencer was thoroughly enmeshed in the invasive world of English aristocracy. From the moment she was ‘introduced’ to the moment she died, her every movement was magnified and analyzed by the lords and ladies she associated with. But Foreman is adamant in her belief that Georgiana was more than a victim of bored and bitchy females. She understood her power and limitations as a woman and made the most of her position. Writes Foreman, 

She was the first woman to conduct a modern electoral campaign, going out into the streets to persuade ordinary people to vote for the Whigs. She took advantage of the country’s rapidly expanding newspaper trade to increase the popularity of the Whig party and succeeded in turning herself into a national celebrity. Georgiana was a patron of the arts, a novelist and writer, an amateur scientist and a musician. It was her tragedy that these successes were overshadowed by private and public misfortune…It would be foolish to separate Georgiana from her era and call her a woman before her time; she was distinctly of her time. Yet her successful entry into the male-dominated world of politics, her relationship with the press, her struggle with addiction, and her determination to forge her own identity make her equally relevant to the lives of contemporary women. 

One of the crucial aspects of Foreman’s biography is that it strives to give its subject a voice that doesn’t reflect the motives of the writer. Lady Georgiana Spencer was a woman whose public image has been molded by both her contemporaries and modern historians to lend support to pre-established arguments. For feminists, she was a rebellious woman ground into submission by a domineering husband and an oppressive social regime. These scholars tend to ignore her desperate—often neurotic—need to feel loved by her mother, her parasitic friend Bess, and her cold, indifferent husband. They also downplay her gambling addiction and her abandonment of an illegitimate daughter fathered by Charles Grey. Political historians, on the other hand, tend to forget the restrictions placed upon eighteenth-century women altogether and lament her ‘meddling’ in politics. She has often been blamed with destroying the integrity of the Whig party by propositioning votes, throwing hedonistic all-night parties, and turning the serious field of English politics into a fashion show. Neither one of these dismissive reductions is accurate or fair. Foreman recognizes how easy it is for biographies to pick-and-choose evidence according to their personal beliefs, and she strives to be as objective as possible. In fact, Foreman urges her reader to think critically about the challenges facing a biographer in the very first paragraph of her book:

Biographers are notorious for falling in love with their subjects. It is the literary equivalent of the Stockholm Syndrome, the phenomenon which leads hostages to feel sympathetic towards their captors. The biographer is, in a sense, a willing hostage, held captive for so long that he becomes hopelessly enthralled. 

Foreman is, of course, just as captivated as any other biographer. Nevertheless, I believe the evidence of her efforts to keep her distance can be seen in the development of her narrative. If Foreman was really in love with Lady Georgiana Spencer, the reader would conclude her book with a sense that the subject had learned from her mistakes and found a way to absolve her sins. This is not the case. By dispersing Georgiana’s intimate, anxiety-ridden letters throughout the narrative, Foreman underscores the fact that Georgiana’s life was defined by cycles of spontaneity, euphoria and remorse. If she learned any important lessons on her deathbed, it would be logical to conclude that these lessons would soon be forgotten if she somehow managed to recover. Foreman loves Georgina, but she does not see her subject as any kind of ideal. She is flawed, self-conscious, and lonely. Perhaps this why she is so easy to identify with. In fact, there are moments when Georgiana’s writing seems to be an eerie echo of my own internal dialogue. After her gambling debts led the Duke to banish her to France, Georgiana tried to convey her conflicting emotions to her strict, self-righteous mother:

I condemn myself as much almost for the misuse of time in my banishment, as anything else. I think I ought to have done so much better and the worst is that I have often given you cause of uneasiness and complaint, tho’ I would have sacrificed my life for your care and to do away the cruel blows I have given you. My mind and my heart always wish’d to do well, but despair at myself and my situation often depriv’d me of all energy and drew me into errors. Sometimes it was better, when I had hope I then could rouse myself, but at times I have sunk to a situation that made me fly to anything for resource.

The contrast between Georgiana’s private thoughts and her public persona is striking. Compare, for instance, the above confession with a description in the Morning Post:

The Duchess of D—e has a fashionable coat of mail; impregnable to the arrows of wit or ridicule; many other females of distinction have been made to moult, and rather than be laughed at any longer, left themselves featherless; while her Grace, with all the dignity of a young Duchess is determined to keep the field, for her feathers increase in enormity in proportion to the public intimations she receives of the absurdity.

From the age of sixteen, Georgiana was subjected to unceasing pressure to look and act a certain way. When she pushed these expectations to their ridiculous extremes—wearing enormous floppy hats or feathers on her head—she was seen as frivolous rather than subversive. Her comments on polite society were never taken ironically because she could not be separated from the culture she wished to critique. Only by comparing her own notes and letters with historical documentation can the full complexity of her life be understood. Writes Foreman, 

…just as no painter ever captured a true likeness of Georgiana during her life, no obituary conveyed the true complexity of her character after her death…Throughout her adult life Georgiana struggled to reconcile the contradictions that enveloped her. She was an acknowledged beauty yet unappreciated by her husband, a popular leader of the ‘ton’ who saw through its hypocrisy, and a woman whom people loved who was yet so insecure in her ability to command love that she became dependent upon the suspect devotion of Lady Elizabeth Foster. She was a generous contributor to charitable causes who nevertheless stole from her friends, a writer who never published under her own name, a devoted mother who sacrificed one child to save the other three.

Georgiana Spencer was a flawed human being, just as we are all flawed human beings. If there is any lesson to be learned from Amanda Foreman’s emotionally-taxing and thoroughly researched biography, it is that even the paragons of fashion and high-culture are racked by doubts and insecurities. Once we chop away all the propaganda, all the offensive cartoons and vindictive gossip, Georgiana Spencer was just a woman who wanted to be loved and lacked the confidence to understand that she was. She was a woman who cared infinitely more about her mother’s opinions than she did about her shameful reputation as a whore and a crook. In Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, we see the vast gulf that can grow between private life and public performance when one’s every action is carefully monitored and critiqued. A person is forced to split into two isolated entities, one of which is completely ignored, while the other is rigidly restricted. It is after reading books such as this that I am very thankful to be relatively unknown and unimportant, free to fall apart, free to express my inappropriate emotions.

NYT book review

'The Duchess of Devonshire: Gossip Guide to the 18th Century'

Roger Ebert's review of 'The Duchess'