Skillfully weaving together social, political, cultural and economic history, this deeply informed and penetrating study provides a rich understanding of the vibrant, tragic, but ever hopeful Lebanese ‘door to East and West’, tracing the intricacies of this fascinating society to their historical roots and revealing the complex web that has emerged. It closes with the observation that ‘a new period in the history of Lebanon had begun’ in 1990, a period that has been marked by achievements and horrors, but with the promise for the better future that its people surely deserve. (Noam Chomsky)

Fawwaz Trabulsi puts Lebanon’s long war into a context that makes it comprehensible and, perhaps, inevitable. Everyone who is curious about that beautiful and tormented country should read his history, one of the best yet. (Charles Glass, author of The Northern Front and The Tribes Triumphant)

This is a unique work. Traboulsi provides a compelling account of Lebanon’s emergence as a state, a critical appraisal of its autonomy, a pathbreaking analysis of its social origins in the intimate and ever changing relationship of caste and class. Traboulsi offers an unsparing critical examination of Lebanon’s recent political history. … This work … cannot be ignored. (Irene Gendzier, Professor of History, Boston University)

Fawwaz Traboulsi is Associate Professor teaching history and politics at the Lebanese American University in Beirut. He is the author of several books.