Born in Addis Ababa in 1910 and educated in England, from 1945 Wilfred Thesiger spent five years exploring in and around the vast, waterless desert, the 'Empty Quarter' of Arabia. Travelling amongst the Bedu people, he experienced their everyday challenges of hunger and thirst, the trials of long marches beneath the relentless sun, the bitterly cold nights and the constant danger of death if it was discovered he was a Christian 'infidel'. He was the first European to visit most of the region, and just before he left the area the process that would change it forever had begun — the discovery of oil. Thesiger saw Arabian Sands as 'a memorial to a vanished past, a tribute to a once magnificent people.'

This edition includes an introduction by Rory Stewart discussing the dangers of Thesiger's travels, his unconventional personality and his insights into Bedu life.