History is often the tale of small moments—chance encounters or casual decisions or sheer coincidence—that seem of little consequence at the time, but somehow fuse with other small moments to produce something momentous, the proverbial flapping of a butterfly's wings that triggers a hurricane.

Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East (ed. Atlantic Books Ltd, 2014) - ISBN: 9781782392019