Ralph Bagnold was among a group of eccentric British explorers who in the 1930's explored the deserts of North Africa using Model T Fords. This book describes his journeys into the region known as the Western Desert of Egypt or the Libyan Sahara. He is a central character in the group of explorers who would be later fictionalized in Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient. Libyan Sands is an exploration of the Egyptian western desert and the Libyan Sahara on the eve of the Second World War.

This classic work was used by NASA in studying sand dunes on Mars and is appropriate for undergraduate and graduate students. The first book to deal exclusively with the behavior of blown sand and related land forms, its accessible style makes it an enduring reference. 84 figures. 16 halftones.