A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered

Front Cover
University of California Press, 1988 - History - 254 pages
Today Lebanon is one of the world's most divided countries. But paradoxically the faction-ridden Lebanese, both Christians and Muslims, have never shown a keener consciousness of common identity. How can this be? In the light of modern scholarship, a famous Lebanese writer and scholar examines the historical myths on which his country's warring communities have based their conflicting visions of the Lebanese nation. He shows that Lebanon cannot afford this divisiveness, that in order to develop and maintain a sense of political unity, it is necesary to distinuish fact from fiction and then build on what is real in the common experience of both groups.

Salibi offers a major reinterpretation of Lebanese history and provides remarkable insights into the dynamic of Lebanon's recent conflict. In so doing, he illuminates important facets of his country's present and future. This book also gives a masterly account of how the imagined communities that underlie modern nationalism are created and will be of interest to students of international affairs as well as Near Eastern scholars.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
How it all began
19
The confidence game
38
Talking geography
57
Rose among the thorns
72
The Maronite record
87
The imagined principality
108
The mountain refuge
130
how unique?
151
Phoenicia resurrected
167
Trial and error
182
The war over Lebanese history
200
A house of many mansions
216
Select bibliography
235
Index
238
Copyright

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About the author (1988)

Kamal Salibi is Professor of History at the American University of Beirut. He has published many articles, and among his books are The Modern History of Lebanon and Crossroads to Civil War.

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