Janet WallachRezensionen

biography - b. 1834 in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Hetty would grow up to own properties in New York, Chicago, plus major shares in railroads in several other states.

interesting to learn about such an eminent, famous woman that has never been mentioned in my history books, and also interesting to learn that in many ways she was exactly the sort of woman that certain politicians would not feel threatened by (she didn't support the cause of women's suffrage, perhaps because she had enough influence already, and did support certain causes in moderation-- the creation of jobs, etc. without mistreating workers the way other moguls migt).

However, there were a few statements that would have benefited from some context or background:

Th. Jefferson wishing that the practice of slavery would die out (mentioned on p. 45) -- Jefferson's involvement with the practice has been fairly well documented and is "complicated" to say the least, so I think a footnote on the topic at the very least would be worthwhile here. Even if he was unable to free all the enslaved people connected to his estate in his will because they would still be seized by debtors to settle outstanding debts after his death, there were plenty of questionable decisions he made apart from that (and apart from what became of his children with Sally Hemings--some of whom he did free, though not all?), including some very detailed records of the severe beatings received by the enslaved on his estate, presumably on his orders.

"With 60 percent of the electoral college but less than 40 percent of the popular vote, in November 1860 Abraham Lincoln won the election for President of the United States." (p.50) -- this is not inaccurate (see https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/elections/1860) but again I feel some context would be valuable here. He had the highest share of the popular vote that year (closer to 39.9%), easily eclipsing Democrat Stephen Douglas' 29.5% and Southern Democrat John Breckenridge's 18.1% (as well as John Bell's 12.6%). This is one of those odd factoids apparently (mis)quoted often and as such requires a more exacting look.

The pirates faced by Edward Green in the south China seas were described as "the ugliest ruffians they had ever encountered" (pp 62-63) which, hyperbole or no, would be more meaningful if the text provided the exact quote (as in Edward's letters or other primary source). It's hard to know what the author meant -- are they missing teeth from scurvy, bearing lots of scars from sea battles, or are they maybe just swarthy/brown/darker-skinned? This is perhaps a relatively minor detail compared to the others but it did make me wonder. As before, I checked the end notes for some source info but came up empty.

Tldr: it was overall fairly interesting (and not by any means an easy task to write such a book when so many of the newspaper articles about her were inaccurate), but would definitely benefit from much more thorough source notes.½

This book was barely OK, almost, "I hated it." The author seemed to believe she was writing a romance, and a biography slithered in. She writes a tremendous amount about the clothing the protagonist/subject wore; she makes amazing leaps to conclusions about what she felt. I could not get through the book, although I understand that the subject was a fascinating and extraordinary person.

espionage, double-agent, biography, historical-places-events, historical-research, historical-setting, history-and-culture, historical-figures, 20th-century, widow, wealthy, Europe, Mid-East, journalist, linguist, explorers, riveting, misogynistic-era, feminist*****

Born an American socialite, widowed at 37, became the first female foreign intelligence agent for the United States government in 1918. As a wealthy socialite/journalist/linguist fluent in several European languages she had access to many political arenas and became a spy and later a double agent. She even became a writer/director/producer of a silent film and wrote her autobiography. Fantastic recounting of an amazing woman who defied the norms of her time.
I requested and received an EARC from Doubleday Books via NetGalley. Thank you

Gertrude Bell was amazing. In a day when women were expected to be “politely educated,” married, and subservient, Bell was single, Oxford-educated, a mountain climber, and a desert explorer.

After teaching herself Arabic, she braved the deserts of pre-World War I Mesopotamia and Arabia with a few servants and her guns. She dined with sheiks and caliphs who normally would not discourse with a woman. She even earned their respect.

During and after the Great War, she was a champion of self-government by Arab people. She worked with her friend, Lawrence of Arabia, to further the Arab voice in the region. Ultimately, their efforts led to a newly formed country of Iraq with an Arab, Faisal I, on the throne.

While her story is amazing, Wallach doesn’t present her as Wonder Woman. Rather, Bell is described as a human with flaws who wants to be a Person, to be someone of consequence. She succeeds in some areas, like politics, more than others, like romance.

I found the book fascinating and truly difficult to put down. Learning from the books I read is important to me. Here I learned a lot about Arab culture and the history of Western interference in the modern Middle East. While I doubt I would have been friends with Bell if I had known her, I found much to admire and astonish. The end of Bell's life was disappointing and surprising.

This was an excellent look at the life of the uncrowned queen of the desert, Gertrude Bell. Bell lived her life as a love letter to Mesopotamia and the peoples found therein. In this book, we follow Gertrude as she embarks on her first visit to the Middle East and discovers something inside herself that she never knew existed. Letters written by Bell enhance the overall feel of the book. One of the things I especially enjoyed about the book was the story of the beginnings of the Iraqi monarchy and a few of the characters within its royal family. Gertrude's savvy and acumen concerning the various Bedouin tribes helped determine the borders of nations and set kings upon thrones.

Very engaging and very highly recommended.½

Hetty Green was born in 1834 and, despite being a girl, learned about money and investments from her father (hmm, on reading the blurb, this may not have been where she learned this – at least not directly). She also seemed quite litigious and took offense when inheritances she thought should go to her didn’t. She was a very wealthy woman.

I listened to the audio, and though the narrator didn’t appear to have an accent, she did pronounce some vowels oddly, which distracted me. Combine that with really being kind of boring and I wasn’t impressed. Because of being somewhat boring, I may not have the summary exactly right, as I wasn’t paying attention to parts of the book. And I didn’t particularly like Hetty. In some ways, she was obviously before her time.

This detailed biography of Gertrude Bell shows what an amazing person she was. In an era when women didn't even travel alone to lunch, she blazed trails where few Europeans and no Victorian-era women had ever been. She was brilliant, fluent in multiple languages, and extraordinarily self-confident. She became the first woman to get a first-class degree in modern history at Oxford, the first woman ever to travel alone in the Syrian desert, and the first female officer in British military intelligence.

She became fascinated by the Middle East as a young girl and as soon as she was able, she began visiting, mapping and writing about several important ancient sites. She ventured out among the Arabs, intent on making friends among them. Originally sent to the East to “find” a husband she decided she would rather advance British interests in the Arabian peninsula. She became the power broker in post WW1 Iraq and was named oriental secretary to the British High Commission.

The author has meticulously detailed Gertrude's travels, and some details get a little repetitive. That did not take away even one moment of my intense interest in her story. If the purpose of “Expanding our Cultural Horizons' is to learn more about a country, it's people and the culture, Desert Queen definitely fits the bill. I've owned this book for several years but never really paid that much attention to it. I'm so glad this challenge pointed me in Gertrude's direction.

A fascinating look at a very unique woman in the Middle East before, during and after the first world war. It is hard to keep all the characters straight in your head, but learning about the events that occurred during her time gives one a better understanding why the ME is the way it is today.

Gertrude Bell (1868-1926) was born to a privileged English family, educated at Oxford, and given the opportunity to travel to the Middle East as a young woman. The journey sparked a passion that led to her becoming the foremost expert on Middle Eastern affairs, and a key figure in establishing the state of Iraq in the early 1920s. Bell was an intrepid traveler, undaunted by harsh desert conditions or warnings of hostile tribes. She had a unique ability to establish trust with Arab leaders; throughout her career she was the only woman “at the table” and yet managed to command respect from most of the men she encountered, British and Arab alike. Bell would return from her travels with insights that shaped development of British policy and negotiation strategies in the Middle East. And yet, because of her gender, she was consistently placed behind the scenes and had to settle for others taking credit for her work.

Gertrude Bell found most of traditional feminine society distasteful, and suppressed her femininity and sexuality to operate in a man’s world. Bell had many colleagues and hosted elaborate parties at her Baghdad home, but had few close friends. Her closest relationships were with her father, her mentor Percy Cox, who served as British Resident, and T.E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia). Although she had a couple of significant romantic relationships with men, she never married. Her intellect and intensity would undoubtedly have intimidated many people she came in contact with.

While Desert Queen is a biography, it reads like a novel, especially when describing Gertrude’s travels. Excerpts from letters to her father and others take the reader beyond the chronological facts and provide a sense of Gertrude as a human being who, despite her outward success, also experienced many disappointments. I couldn’t help but admire her tenacity. I’m grateful to author Janet Wallach for bringing Bell’s contributions out into the open and ensuring she gets credit for her profound and long-lasting impact in the Middle East.

The author managed to convey an amazingly complex subject in a clear and engaging manner even to someone with no prior knowledge of the subject. Both the person and the early history of Iraq were fascinatingly presented½

It would be interesting to do parallel lives of Gertrude Bell and Freya Stark. Both made their names as lone women travelers in the Middle East; both were successful authors; both were multilingual (Bell’s translation of the Persian poet Hafiz is still considered one of the best, and Persian wasn’t even her primary foreign language); both were adjuncts to the English diplomatic service; both were unlucky in love. The differences were great, though; Stark came from a “genteel impoverished” middle class family, while Bell’s family was extremely wealthy. Bell was formally educated at Oxford (at a time when that was quite rare for a woman); Stark was self-taught. When Stark travelled alone, she was really alone; while Bell’s idea of “alone” including a coterie of servants, several tents, an elaborate wardrobe, a folding canvas bathtub, a collapsible dining table, and a complete set of dinnerware with crystal – and she always dressed for dinner, even in the middle of the Arabian desert.


And Bell was a lot more influential than Stark in the diplomatic world; her travels had taken her through Syria, Arabia and Mesopotamia when they were still under Ottoman control (I had to be reminded that there was no “Iraq” in Ottoman times; instead there were separate provinces of Mosul, Baghdad and Basrah). Bell made the acquaintance of just about every prominent Arab in the area; she was somehow able to get herself treated as an “honorary man” and was able to get sheiks and holy men – many of whom had never seen an unveiled woman except their wives - to receive her and talk to her about politics. She was also trained as a surveyor and made maps of her travel areas; as a result when WWI started she was an invaluable resource.


Her personality was such, though, that she rubbed a number of her male colleagues the wrong way (one wrote home to his wife that the “… bitch … was a silly, chattering windbag of conceited, gushing, flat-chested, man-woman, globe-trotting, rump-wagging, blethering [sic] ass”. One assumes he toned down his language for his wife; perhaps he told his coworkers how he really felt.) Gradually, however, her genuine talents outweighed her interesting personality and her coworkers either learned to get along with her or resigned and went elsewhere. First assigned to draw maps and write reports a spare bedroom in Basrah with no official position or salary, the quality of her work gradually impressed the higher ups to the extent that she was eventually made a major in the Foreign Service (didn’t realize they had military ranks, but apparently so). In addition to her writing and maps, she hosted frequent dinner parties in Basrah and Baghdad mingling British diplomats with Arab sheiks and Jewish businessmen and picking up all sorts of useful political gossip. Her greatest triumph, though, was the 1921 Cairo conference which ended up establishing an Iraqi state; there a famous picture of her on a camel in front of the Sphinx, with Winston Churchill on her right and T.E> Lawrence on her left.


Alas, her romantic life was not a triumph. Biographer Janet Wallach speculates that she held men to an excessively high standard. Her one great love was apparently Dick Doughty-Wylie, “soldier, statesman, poet and adventurer, he was everything Gertrude dreamed of in a man”. Unfortunately, Doughty-Wylie was married. He and Bell met for four days in London in 1914 while Doughty-Wylie’s wife was in France; the letters Doughty-Wylie and Bell exchanged later suggest that there was a lot of “heavy petting” but no sex, because Bell drew back. Doughty-Wylie’s further letters suggested they could remain Platonic lovers; some of them are pretty turgid and sound like part of an indifferently written romance novel. The question became academic when Doughty-Wylie took a bullet to the head as an infantry captain at Gallipoli, and Bell never again engaged in anything serious.


And alas again, Bell’s diplomatic edifice also turned out to be built on sand. We know how Iraq ended up (this book was written in 1999). Bell had recognized the problem - nobody really thought of themselves as Iraqis, but as Sunni or Shi’ite or Kurdish or Arab or Baghdadi or Bedouin (or Jew or Christian, until they were all expelled or killed) – but she thought they would rally behind Faisal of Mecca as a King (and Faisal, in fact, was initially as least moderately popular). Didn’t last; even as Faisal was getting crowned in Baghdad his family was being expelled from the Arabian Peninsula by Ibn Saud.


And once there was an Iraq, there really wasn’t much use for Miss Bell any more. She was made the Curator of the Iraqi Museum but her diplomatic influence was over. Her family fortune evaporated and although she joked about having to go to the workhouse it obviously affected her. She had vague health problems; the fact the she chain-smoked Turkish cigarettes probably didn’t help. Her doctor prescribed sleeping pills; on July 11, 1926, three days before her 58th birthday she took an overdose. She was buried with full military honors.


As mentioned, Wallach’s writing sometimes has more of a romance novel than biography flavor. There are frequent and extensive descriptions of Bell’s clothing, right down to her lingerie. Initially I found this annoying, being used to more conventional biographies; however after a while I actually began to enjoy it; after all, Bell’s life was sort of like a romance novel. (And to be fair, in Bell’s role as a diplomatic hostess, her dress was important and a lot of her letters home ask for some piece of clothing or another to be sent from London. And sometimes her lingerie is directly relevant; Bell once smuggled a rifle and surveying equipment by packing them in with her underwear, correctly figuring that Ottoman authorities would be reluctant to rummage through a woman’s lacy underthings looking for contraband).


While Wallach’s writing about diplomacy and romance seems correct (not that I have much experience with either), she’s not very good with WWI history. She describes the war starting when Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in the “Serbian capital of Sarajevo” and the Gallipoli campaign was supposedly organized to “cut off Turkish forces on their way to Baghdad”. Although this is egregiously wrong, it’s minor. Picture sections show Bell at various life stages, plus other figures in the story. Nice before and after WWI maps of the Middle East. Endnotes, but not numbered, just referenced by text.


There have been a number of Bell biographies; this is the first one I’ve read so I have no standard of comparison. I enjoyed it, though, even the mushy parts.½

I read this book because I was interested in the history of the Middle East prior to World War II. I knew the borders were changed by the British after WWI, and I was curious about what things were like there before that happened. My librarian recommended this book because Gertrude Bell was instrumental in the changes that were instituted. I learned what I wanted to know, but found it a slog. Yes, it was important to know her background and how she came to be on a first name basis with many of the key figures in the Arab world, and how she became a central figure in the British offices in Cairo and Baghdad. And yes, she was a remarkable woman for her time. But I was more interested in the area than I was in her and it took most of the book to get to what I wanted to know. Well written and researched.

Gertrude Bell was an extraordinary woman for any time, but especially for the time in which she lived....the Victorian Era of England, through WWI, to 1924.

Born into a wealthy industrialist family in northwest England in late mid 19th century, her mother died in childbirth when Gertrude was just three. As a young child she formed an unusually close bond with her father which was to last all her life. The family's wealth and social connections provided her with an unusual education for a woman of her time. It also supported her extensive travel through the Middle East, and for mountain climbing expeditions in Switzerland as a young woman.

These travels, her acquisition of Arabic languages, and knowledge of the customs and mores of the desert people made her valuable to the British Government as they tried to sort out how to deal with Iraq as a consequence of the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the close of WWI.

It's a fascinating story and proof that truth is often more engaging than fiction.

This sumptuously detailed account of the life of Gertrude Bell is must-reading for those interested in Middle Eastern history or any reader looking for an extraordinarily captivating biography. For the uninitiated in the life of Bell, the milestones of her life such as being one of the first female graduates from Oxford, working as an archeologist/sociologist, and finally an architect of the country of Iraq is quite extraordinary to read and take in. Wallach's level of research through what must have been scores of letters shows itself in the richly detailed prose that honestly reads like a great romantic adventure novel. Bell's story with both its triumphs and sadly all too many heartaches makes for some very compelling reading and Wallach's style pilot's the reader's emotions as well as that of any writer working in fiction. Stocked with many insights and facts about the creation of the modern Middle East, most striking in light of today's turmoil is Bell's reasoning for including the Kurds in the creation of Iraq. This book goes along way to shedding light on the origins of much of the sectionalism that is rife there today. It also makes one wonder if Iraq was ever met to be at all.

In the introduction to her biography of Mary Shelley, Muriel Spark states that she “ha{s} always disliked the sort of biography which states 'X lay on the bed and watched the candle flickering on the roof beams,' when there is no evidence that X did so.” I took note of this comment because I happen to agree with it. Unfortunately, this biography of Hetty Green is that sort of biography. Apparently there is a dearth of primary sources documenting Hetty Green's life. The author relied on secondary accounts from newspapers and the like. The biography was embellished with all sorts of little actions like skirt brushing and hair smoothing that aren't likely to be documented anywhere. The biography was also padded with lists of national and international news events that occurred at various times in Hetty's life. It made me wonder if the author had a YA audience in mind since most adult readers wouldn't need such long lists in order to understand the events in Hetty's life in their historical context. The reader for the audio version wasn't very expressive or engaging, and her voice magnified the book's flaws instead of diverting my attention from them the way a good narrator can do. Disappointing.

If you’ve never heard of Gertrude Bell, do yourself a favor and check out Janet Wallach’s “Desert Queen” (Anchor Books, 2005). This book depicts the life and journeys of a woman who was the best-known traveler of the Middle East and Arabia in the years before World War I. Gertrude Bell was born into a wealthy and respectable English family, yet, despite her “proper” upbringing, she thought nothing of roving throughout the Middle East surrounded by Arab men. Never a suffragist, she nevertheless became the first female officer for British military intelligence, and, after World War I, she was considered the most powerful woman in the British Empire.

This is simply an amazing book. I say this for two reasons: Gertrude Bell was a conflicted and complex woman, intelligent yet bound by Victorian mores, and because I now understand much more about what’s going on in the Middle East.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. George Santayana

Nothing much has changed in the Middle East, and after reading this book, one could not expect anything different than what’s occurred. Gertrude Bell would weep hot tears if she were magically transported to Baghdad today.

1920s Middle East + technology + Israel = 2015 Middle East. Oversimplification, but all things I hear about and read about in the news are foreshadowed in this book.

*spoilers about her life below*

Gertrude Bell’s amazing life came about by accident because she didn’t get married in the three requisite “Seasons” to find a husband. She was articulate, intellectually precocious, dominant, and these traits weren’t conducive to finding a Victorian husband. She traveled, became interested in the Middle East, and did things to occupy her. She was very, very good at these things and learned Arabic, the power relationships in the Middle East, the personalities, and what was happening. However, she always wanted a husband and children. Even after child-bearing age, she always wanted a husband and her last romance, with Ken Cornwallis in her mid-50s, was the proof of this.

Her other love was her father, Hugh Bell. She bowed to his decrees and lived off his wealth much, if not all, of her life. The one thing I absolutely cannot understand is why, when he refused his permission for her to marry Henry Cadogan, this didn’t cause a break in their relationship. She accepted it.

The other thing she wanted was to be a Person. Someone of consequence, respected for her achievements as a man would be, someone respected. From the many quotes from her letters, Janet Wallach portrays this yearning. Sometimes it’s accomplished, othertimes she’s bewailing “not being a Person.”

In the end she had neither. Unmarried, a spinster who may or may not ever consummated a physical relationship with a man, and marginalized in the Middle East by the very government who gave her autonomy and power during the late 1910s and early 1920s.

The book ends on the sad note of the 30-foot tall statue of Faisal and the undusted bust of Gertrude Bell on a forgotten shelf in the Iraq Museum.

I enjoyed the information about Hetty Green. She drew the disdain of her father and the ambivalence of her Quaker mother because she wasn't born a male. Due to her that neglect she was angry and acted out. However, she had an aptitude for finance and because of that, she gained the respect of her father and grandfather.

Throughout her life, she went through constant battles including enduring countless court dates contesting the will of her aunt's will, her husband philandering ways, her son's deteriorating leg condition, her daughter's solitude, and her growing paranoia on her enemies trying to poison her. Despite of all that, Hetty was on top financially. Her rules to success are tried and true: buy when others are selling, sell when others are buying, invest in land, live way below your needs. Indeed, Hetty Green was the richest miserly woman in America in the Gilded Age.

Had that been the entire novel, with sprinkles of the culture on New York through the Gilded Age, Wallach would have succeeded wonderfully and this would have been a four starred review easy! However, Wallach stuffed it with useless information about real estate, debutant life, and the allegorical meaning of Baum's The Wizard of Oz. Some of the information was very interesting and if Wallach wants to pen a novel about New York's Gilded Age, I would read it.

I suspect the reason Wallach went off on random verbose tangents is because there really isn't information on Hetty Green. I tried looking up information and I found three reputable sites with the same information. That explains why she would rephrase Hetty Green's rules 70 times within a chapter. It must have been tough for her to come up with with the recommended page count with such scant information on the source material. I can't fault Wallach. She did the best she could but I can't forgive her either.

I have been fascinated with Hetty Green since reading her biography THE DAY THEY SHOOK THE PLUM TREE many years ago. The Richest Woman in America: Hetty Green in the Gilded Age adds a fresh look at Hetty. A look into the life of a 19th/20th century woman who despite her sex and how women were viewed at the time, amassed a huge fortune. The book is well written and worth a detour.

Hettie (alternately Hetty) Green was born into a family that rejected her. Her father, convinced that he was having a son, was terribly disappointed. When his son was born, 9 months later, only to die, he was bereft, as was her mother. She was further rejected and was sent to live with her grandfather.
Hettie had a very strict and rigid Quaker upbringing, and she learned the lessons well, exhibiting the values and standards of the Friends, for most of her life. She was frugal, moral and honest, if not always kind, in the way she lived and conducted her affairs. She remained a Quaker until very late in her life when she converted, was baptized, became an Episcopalian like her husband, and was buried next to him.
She worked hard to gain the love and respect of her father and did succeed, eventually. She found it easy to make money. Her philosophy worked. She was bright and she proved herself worthy of taking over the family business, at a time, in the mid 1800’s, when there were few rights for women and fewer men who gave them the respect that was due an intelligent, accomplished woman, who was expected to do nothing more than shop, embroider, conduct social affairs, and matters of the home. Business skills were unnecessary and thought of as inappropriate for females.
Hettie, however, rose to become a powerful businesswoman with great influence on everything she undertook. Although her business prowess was admired, she was often mocked for it, even though a man with the same skills and success would have been praised for his acumen.
As a young girl, in order to find a suitor, her aunt enrolled her at a fine school for dance, in Sandwich, a town in Cape Cod, MA. There she learned proper decorum and how to conduct herself with grace and charm. However, she was often portrayed as disheveled, never really concerned with vanity or appearance. She was educated intellectually at Friend’s Academy, a Quaker school, where her father’s financial and moral lessons were enhanced.
Hettie married Edward Green, a man of considerable reputation and wealth. They lived in England for several years and Hettie bore two children, Ned and Sylvia. Both her father and her aunt, who stepped in after the death of her mother, and with whom she was extraordinarily close, disappointed her by not trusting her to take care of her own money, leaving their estates in a trust for her, instead, despite the fact that she had proven herself far more capable than many a man. She had hoped for and, indeed, they had promised, to provide her with financial freedom.
Hettie’s life was a roller coaster of financial investments in stocks, railroads, property, and mortgages; marital concerns, social engagements, lawsuits, grudges and revenge. The road she traveled was often bumpy, but her indomitable spirit carried her onward to become the most prominent and wealthy woman of her time, withstanding all the arrows of that period.
She lived during a century of trauma, the Civil War was raging, she witnessed history with the birth of The Emancipation Proclamation, the writings of Karl Marx, bank failures, stock market crashes, (sounds like today!) the beginnings of the woman’s suffrage movement, the demand for equality, and even the assassination of two Presidents, Lincoln and McKinley. In a man’s world, she was far more successful than men! She survived each crisis on top of the heap.
Her father foresaw the end of the whale oil market, he saw the coming age of railroads, he was an astute businessman and investor, and Hettie took after him. However, she was always a penny-pincher until the end, always given to plain taste in clothing and lifestyle, not very interested in charity, but always interested in making more money.
Always remembering how she was given short shrift in the wills of her family, she wanted to make sure her own children were well provided for and could be independent. She succeeded. She held sway over their choices and decisions without mercy, and as a result, Sylvia did not marry until the age of 38, and Ned kept company with someone for years that his mother would not accept, whom she called Miss Harlot instead of Miss Harlow.
Hettie was nothing, if not outspoken. As a result of her interference, neither child produced an heir to either carry on the name or inherit the fortune. It was doled out piecemeal to many beneficiaries, and the Robinson/Greene family dynasty died with the death of her children.
A remarkable woman, whose main interest was simply making money (and she sure made a lot of it before she “shuffled off this mortal coil”, at the age of 82, as the richest woman in America), comes to life and lives on in the pages of this book, thanks to the research and very authentic presentation of her, by Janet Wallach, the author.

Gertrude Bell really was extraordinary. Because of the strictures on class of the day, and her intellect, which wouldn't allow her to brook any fools, her spinster's life took off in the middle east. Her voracious mind and adventurous spirit led her all over the waning Ottoman Empire. As the British Oriental Secretary she guided the birth of several newly created states and their rulers. This was, especially in Iraq where she finally found her true home. Giants of the twentieth century such as T. E. Lawrence and Winston Churchill routinely moved through her life. This biography gives a basic understanding of the tribal and cultural dynamics of the Middle East and why the troubles that were apparent in Bell's day plague the world still.

What a disappointment.....I got an ARC of this one through ER, and really found it hard to get into. It was well written, and researched. It's the story of Hetty Rowland Robinson Green, born to money, sent off to boarding school, raised by the Quakers, inheriting money, thinking she'd married money, etc etc etc. This woman had access to and manipulated obscene amounts of money throughout her lifetime.

The book tells that story in cumbersome detail. At times, I felt I was reading a Biblical roll call of stock deals, (i.e., x begat y, y begat z, z begat a and b, etc etc etc). Yes, it was a biography, and the author was obviously feeling bound to explain in excruciating detail all the lawsuits, stock transfers, secret midnight withdrawals, etc that kept Ms. Green as rich as she was. I even tried listening to the audio, but that was even more boring.

One of the things that was fascinating was her propensity to move constantly. Supposedly it was to avoid having a fixed address and thereby being able to avoid paying taxes.

I was bummed that my Advance copy only contained one illustration. Half of the interest in this reader's mind was the crazy outfits she wore when one day she'd appear disguised as a servant, and that night appear at a dinner party in satin and jewels. It would have been nice to have been able to see some of those pictures. The ARC simply has two empty pages labeled "Illustration Credits".

There isn't a lot to say....if you like detailed biographies of interesting women, you'll probably like this book. Just because she was rich, and seemed to exercise a high degree of moral and ethical judgment in how she spent (or rather loaned) all this money, doesn't necessarily make her interesting to me. Yes, she bailed out the city of New York on numerous occasions by loaning them millions at 5%, but perhaps if she'd established a legal residence and paid some taxes, the city might not have had to borrow!!!

At the end, she certainly did prove that women are as capable as men of amassing and managing wealth.
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This is a terrific read and I am embarrassed to say I had not even heard of Hetty Green until I read this book. This is more evidence of how many women worthy of note have been overlooked in U.S. history. Another example is the great biography of Frances Perkins, a member of FDR's cabinet and a true pioneer in the welfare of the nation. I encourage readers to pick up this book and spread the word...

The subject of this book was a total unknown to me. However, the book was incredible well written. I learned a lot about this, at her time, famous woman. It was also interesting to see that things on Wall Street really haven't changed at all in the past 120 years! My husband read the book after I finished it and he enjoyed it just as much. I will be looking for more books by Janet Wallach!

Before picking up this book, I had never heard of Hetty Green, who inherited and invested her way to an estate that at the time of her death in 1916, was worth over $2 billion in today's money. She did this at a time when women were not supposed to be involved in business and certainly not in Wall Street. Green's favored strategy was buy low, sell high, and she also made her money go farther by living a plain and frugal life at a time when people with comparable wealth were living extravagantly.

Throughout the book, Wallach uses an odd mix of formal and conversational language, as if she couldn't decide whether her audience should be academic or popular. She goes into great detail on trivial aspects of Green's life, while glossing over major events. In areas where there is little information on Green's life, Wallach brings in anecdotes of the period, but does not connect these anecdotes to Green in a clear or meaningful way. Her writing style is extremely passive. There are a few typographical errors, but since I received a bound galley rather than a final copy of the book, I hope these have been corrected in the final version. A major flaw is that black people are nearly always referred to as "colored" or "Negro," even in passages written by Wallach that are not quotes from the period. Even though these were common and accepted terms in the nineteenth century, they should not be used for what appears to be no good reason in a modern work.