I'm not sorry I read this, but it was a slog. The writing seems to be highly stylized, and as a result I'm not entirely sure that the translation accurately captured what the author was doing in the Arabic. If not it's hard to understand how he won the Nobel prize for literature.

That said, you do very much get a sense of what the Arab world lost as the Ottomans were evicted and the western European powers took over the area. You can also clearly see where the misunderstandings and bigotry back then led directly to the problems in the area today. But you can get the same experience and enjoy yourself more by watching Lawrence of Arabia.