Beirut

Praised as the definitive history of Beirut, this is the story of a city that has stood at the crossroads of Mediterranean civilization for more than four thousand years. It takes the reader from the ancient to the modern world, offering a dazzling panorama of the city's Seleucid, Roman, Arab, Ottoman, and French incarnations.

Widely praised as the definitive history of Beirut, this is the story of a city that has stood at the crossroads of Mediterranean civilization for more than four thousand years. The last major work completed by Samir Kassir before his tragic death in 2005, "Beirut" is a tour de force that takes the reader from the ancient to the modern world, offering a dazzling panorama of the city's Seleucid, Roman, Arab, Ottoman, and French incarnations. Kassir vividly describes Beirut's spectacular growth in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, concentrating on its emergence after the Second World War as a cosmopolitan capital until its near destruction during the devastating Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990. Generously illustrated and eloquently written, "Beirut" illuminates contemporary issues of modernity and democracy while at the same time memorably recreating the atmosphere of one of the world's most picturesque, dynamic, and resilient cities.

List of Illustrations Foreword by Robert Fisk Translator's Note Acknowledgments Abbreviations
Prologue: The Eyes of the Mind
Part One: From the Ancient to the Modern World
1. Beirut before Beirut 2. The Great Transformation 3. The Ibrahim Pasha Era 4. The Roads from Damascus 5. A Window on Ottoman Modernity
Part Two: The Awakening
6. A Cultural Revolution 7. Between Boston and Rome 8. The Horizon of the World 9. Uncertain Identities
Part Three: The Capital of the Mandate
10. France Broadens Its Mission 11. The French City 12. Grand-Liban and Petit Paris 13. A Crucible for Independence
Part Four: The Cosmopolitan Metropolis of the Arabs
14. The Switzerland of the East 15. Beirut, Male and Female 16. The Pleasures of the World 17. Ecochard's Lost Wagers
Part Five: The City of Every Danger
18. On the Knife's Edge 19. The End of Innocence 20. Beirut, O Beirut!
Epilogue: To Be or To Have Been Notes
Glossary of Arabic and Turkish Terms Bibliography Photographic Credits Index