Lawrence of Arabia: A Film's Anthropology »

Steven C. Caton is Professor of Modern Arab Society in the Department of Anthropology at Harvard University and the author of Peaks of Yemen I Summon: Poetry as Cultural Practice in a North Yemeni Tribe (California, 1990).

"Caton's imagination was deeply affected by the power of Lawrence of Arabia, a cinematic classic that he knows intimately . . . and analyzes intelligently. Having read his multi-layered critique of Lean's epic masterpiece, we'll now be viewing our old favorite with new insight and appreciation."—L. Robert Morris and Lawrence Raskin, coauthors of Lawrence of Arabia: The 30th Anniversary Pictorial History

Vivian Sobchack

Caton effortlessly weaves together discussions of transnational film production, post-colonial theory, and American British and Middle-Eastern history with a more personal focus on masculinity...This brave and honest book not only illuminates the complex ambivalence of a single mainstream epic but also reveals the dialectical dynamics in both filmmaking and spectorship.