Book review shocker: Dune, by Frank Herbert

I’ve just had this amazing email discussion, so have cut and pasted it:

“I had a sudden realisation that the story of Dune (1965) is a very close copy of the T.E. Lawrence story Seven Pillars of Wisdom (1926). In both, a technologically advanced colonial power (Germans/Harkonnen) takes control of a distant desert land and suppresses its people (Arabs/Fremen). A rival colonial power (British/Atreides) then arrives and helps the indigenous resistance to expel the oppressor and, by leading them, this elevates one of their own number to the vanity of hero status (T.E. Lawrence/Paul Atreides). The desert land is then free (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq/Arrakis), but the reality is that the territory has become part of the empire of the second colonial power. Probable conclusion: Frank Herbert read Seven Pillars and then adapted the basic plot into a new genre.” — and no one has ever noticed this before!