Beirut Paperback – 16 Dec. 2011

A wonderful book.

The assassination of Samir Kasir in 2005 was a sudden awakening to the muddled realities of post-Syria Lebanon. However Kassir's epic history also displays the dangers of being seduced by a nostalgia for the past.Kassir traces Beirut's story back to the first traces of human presence in the area, but it is from 1830 that the bedrock for the city's boom is laid, a boom that events both economic and political in 1861 would accelerate. In particular the creation of the autonomous mutasarrifiyya in Mount Lebanon would create a `Westernising wave' that would eventually lead to the creation of greater Lebanon under a French protectorate at the end of the First World War.Beirut grew due to the misfortune of some and the neediness of others. The city's story is told as an evolving meeting between East and West, and during the Ottoman years Kassir wonders at how `the Porte showed an inclination to accept European interference in its internal affairs that seemed to border on complacency'. The sustained impact of Christian missions and the education infrastructure they created distinguishes Beirut from Cairo and Istanbul. Beirut was to become a `bridgehead of European expansion', a `Westernised Mediterranean Arab metropolis' with the development of its port and transport infrastructure described in detail. The developing character of the city emerges in a particularly colourful manner, with descriptions of adjustment to European habits such as house design, recreational activities and even changing trends in people's names.Kassir's work is heavily informed by a nostalgic tone that Haugbolle's book goes so far to explain. At one point Kassir veers off what one might expect from a dispassionate history by describing the city as having a `unique and incomparably seductive quality'. Such nostalgia means that chapters focusing on Beirut's laissez faire freedoms are lengthy and detailed, whilst the story of the city during the civil war are only given a cursory few pages and maps. The history also regularly blurs the line between that of Lebanon and that of Beirut, perhaps a testimony to the capital's size and scale. However, although the emergence of a `modern belt of misery' in the city's suburb is referred to, it is not given the justice of a proper examination. This could be explained by the melancholic nostalgia that shows itself in the epilogue where Kassir wonders whether following the emergence of the Gulf `what purpose remains, then, for Beirut to fulfill, beyond serving simply as a place for recreation and entertainment?'

Very interesting book, deserving 5* classificationHowever, book arrived torn with bendings all over the cover. It was bought as new but it doesn't look like it.Also, estimated arrival was 2 business days after purchasing (which I payed more for) and arrived almost two weeks after.Terrible service from amazon