Page Lebanon

For those interested in familiarizing themselves with the Middle East in general and Lebanon in particular, I recommend the following books. This is not to say that these books are superior to other works, or that I endorse their views, but only that I have read these books and, for one reason or another, find them enjoyable or informative. 

Middle East:

Holy Qu’ran. Trans. N.J. Dawood. New York: Penguin Books, 1956.

Fromkin, David. A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. New York: Holt and Co., 1989.

Hourani, Albert. Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.

Ibn Khaldun. Al Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History. Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967.

Lewis, Bernard. What Went Wrong? The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Sharabi, Hisham. Arab Intellectuals and the West: The Formative Years, 1875-1914. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970.

Lebanon:

Abou Khalil, Joseph. Les Maronites dans la Guerre du Liban. Paris: EDIFRA, 1992.

Ajami, Fouad. The Vanished Imam: Musa al Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986.

Blanford, Nicholas, Killing Mr. Lebanon: The Assassination of Rafik Hariri and Its Impact on the Middle East. London: IB Tauris, 2006.

Harik, Judith Palmer. Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism. London: I. B. Tauris, 2004.

Harris, William W. The New Face of Lebanon: History’s Revenge. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2005.

El-Khazen, Farid. The Breakdown of the State in Lebanon, 1967–1976.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Fisk, Robert. Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Kaufman, Asher. Reviving Phoenicia: In Search of Identity in Lebanon. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004.

Phares, Walid. Lebanese Christian Nationalism: The Rise and Fall of an Ethnic Resistance. Boulder, CO: L. Rienner, 1995.

Rabbath, Edmond. La Formation Historique du Liban Politique et Constitutionnel. Beirut: Publication de l’Université Libanaise, 1986.

Rabinovich, Itamar. The War for Lebanon, 1970-1985. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985.

Salibi, Kamal. The Modern History of Lebanon. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965.

Salibi, Kamal. A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered. London: IB Taurus, 1988.

Zamir, Meir. The Formation of Modern Lebanon. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1985.

Zamir, Meir. Lebanon’s Quest: The Road to Statehood, 1926–1939. London: IB Tauris, 1997.

Ziadeh, Hanna. Sectarianism and Inter-Communal Nation Building in Lebanon. London: Hurst & Co., 2006.