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[[File:Behind_the_Legend.jpeg|thumbnail|left|200px|''[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198802277/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0198802277&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=fb890d8f1f6e6b9d35493a45cd20e1a8 Behind the Lawrence Legend: the Forgotten Few who Shaped the Arab Revolt]'' by Philip Walker]]

By Philip Walker the author of ''[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198802277/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0198802277&linkCode=as2&tag=dailyh0c-20&linkId=fb890d8f1f6e6b9d35493a45cd20e1a8 Behind the Lawrence Legend: the Forgotten Few who Shaped the Arab Revolt]'' ([https://global.oup.com/academic/?cc=us&lang=en& Oxford University Press], 2018)

T. E. Lawrence, known as “Lawrence of Arabia,” has provoked controversy for a hundred years. His legend was promoted in the 1920s by the American Lowell Thomas’s travelogue; renewed in 1935 through his book Seven Pillars of Wisdom; and revived in 1962 by the epic film Lawrence of Arabia. The hype should not blind us to the fact that Lawrence’s contribution to the Arab Revolt of 1916-18 against the Turks was indispensable. His skills in organizing and coordinating, his daring and courage, his intuitive grasp of guerrilla warfare and how to harness it, his influence over Emir Feisal (the leader of Arab forces in the field), and his talent for manipulating his own leaders if necessary, were all crucial to the hollow success of the revolt.

Cyril Wilson was the outstanding forgotten shaper and sustainer of the revolt. Near the end of Wilson’s life, General Reginald Wingate wrote to him praising his indispensable role and his “great work” in the Arab Revolt, without which, he said, it could never have succeeded. Wilson and his circle deserve to be commemorated, a century after their vital work fell through the cracks of history. It is not unreasonable to believe that Lawrence—complex and unfathomable as he was—would have acknowledged that this was so.