Fascinating account of some of the first journeys undertaken with motor transport in the Egyptian and Libyan deserts, in the late 1920s and 1930s. Good description and detail of a group, some of whom served in the LRDG units in WWII, the forerunner of the SAS. ( )

The cover shows a picture of sand shaped in a large soft moving sand dune, and really the length of this book is about sand and the varriation of sand dunes that exist in regard to travel in a motor vehicle. There is of course a story, and the account of Bagnolds enthusiasm is what makes the read, as he was certainly a dedicated military man who sacrificed his home leave in the army to explore very inhospitable desert of north Africa. Bagnold then going on to form the S.A.S. of the British armed forces, and reading this book is a help to understanding how the alied forces and Britain won the 2nd world war. Being patient about reading of the technical data in this book, I still rate it highly as a wonderful contribution to the field of travel and describing how the military shaped and expanded its knowledge of the desert in order to fight that war and subsequent wars. ( )