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Lebanon: A House Divided
"A beautifully written, often profound account." ― Chicago Sun-Times
With a new introduction by the author, a seminal study of Lebanon’s past, present, and future. Covering Lebanon's history through the Civil War of 1975―89, Sandra Mackey lays the groundwork needed to comprehend this often ill-understood country―offering insight into its role as the gateway between West and East, and bringing a clarity of focus to the schisms that serve to divide and define Lebanon.
With a new introduction by the author, a seminal study of Lebanon’s past, present, and future. Covering Lebanon's history through the Civil War of 1975―89, Sandra Mackey lays the groundwork needed to comprehend this often ill-understood country―offering insight into its role as the gateway between West and East, and bringing a clarity of focus to the schisms that serve to divide and define Lebanon.
320 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1989
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326 people want to read
About the author
Sandra Mackey
22 books6 followersSandra Mackey was an American writer on Middle Eastern culture and politics.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
January 20, 2021
In a country where politics is always subject brought up in any sitting, I think it would be useful to know a bit of its history before discussing it so freely and unapologetically. I was, in fact, one of those people. As I socioeconomic changes can be witnessed in every fleeting second, it can be difficult and sometimes impossible for youth not to be interested or involved in the change of their country's innate corrupt system, but its really rather hard to create a better future if you do not recognize the subject's past.
As a person who was born a decade after the civil war, all I know is that my parents used to hide in underground cellars for days during bombing, and that they would sometimes fry french fries down there. I also knew that it was a war between the christians and muslims, and beirut was torn into an east and west. I heard a couple things about the PLO, the Israeli invasion, Syrian occupation but didnt understand any of it; I didnt understand why muslims and christians fought, I had thought it was because of different belief systems (that was very naive, but in my defense I've realized that rarely do grownups like to bring up the period of war, so I just learned not to ask them about it).
Since our school system's history classes stop at Lebanon's claim for independence, entire generations do not understand how they've gotten to this point, a revolution, economic rapture, and radicalizing point of views in politics. Beautifully written and narrated, it feels very just and fair to everyone involved, which is something very rare in our politics. It tackles, in a general overview, the several events throughout history (dating back from the 11th century) leading to the promising, but masked, years of the 50s and 60s, to the disillusionment of the 70s and the war.
If you are ever interested in getting to know the reasons lebanon is torn into divided territories ruled by specific sects, or why we have reached this point of history, or maybe even your role and how you have been bred to believe some things and ignore other, this is a great book to start your mission in doing so. Descriptions so vivid it feels like you've travelled through time, with numbers and statistics that help you really believe in the situations rather than just hearing a biased viewpoint from some distant relative; It is also immensely entertaining, each chapter starts with a vivid and clear description of somewhere in lebanon where we meet a character that had been interviewed with the making of this book, and we get a small introduction that sets the mood for the upcoming chapter, and thus starts the information pouring out.
Definitely recommend if you dont think you know enough of why and how the civil war occured, it also goes back and forth through time so you dont have to already have known anything.
As a person who was born a decade after the civil war, all I know is that my parents used to hide in underground cellars for days during bombing, and that they would sometimes fry french fries down there. I also knew that it was a war between the christians and muslims, and beirut was torn into an east and west. I heard a couple things about the PLO, the Israeli invasion, Syrian occupation but didnt understand any of it; I didnt understand why muslims and christians fought, I had thought it was because of different belief systems (that was very naive, but in my defense I've realized that rarely do grownups like to bring up the period of war, so I just learned not to ask them about it).
Since our school system's history classes stop at Lebanon's claim for independence, entire generations do not understand how they've gotten to this point, a revolution, economic rapture, and radicalizing point of views in politics. Beautifully written and narrated, it feels very just and fair to everyone involved, which is something very rare in our politics. It tackles, in a general overview, the several events throughout history (dating back from the 11th century) leading to the promising, but masked, years of the 50s and 60s, to the disillusionment of the 70s and the war.
If you are ever interested in getting to know the reasons lebanon is torn into divided territories ruled by specific sects, or why we have reached this point of history, or maybe even your role and how you have been bred to believe some things and ignore other, this is a great book to start your mission in doing so. Descriptions so vivid it feels like you've travelled through time, with numbers and statistics that help you really believe in the situations rather than just hearing a biased viewpoint from some distant relative; It is also immensely entertaining, each chapter starts with a vivid and clear description of somewhere in lebanon where we meet a character that had been interviewed with the making of this book, and we get a small introduction that sets the mood for the upcoming chapter, and thus starts the information pouring out.
Definitely recommend if you dont think you know enough of why and how the civil war occured, it also goes back and forth through time so you dont have to already have known anything.
August 9, 2024
I'd been looking for a history of the Lebanese civil war for a while, and found Fisk's Pity the Nation more or less unreadable, both due to its verbosity and the purpleness of its prose. Mackey very helpfully states at the start, "This is not a history of the Lebanese civil war." Lucky for us she is lying, and it's a totally serviceable introduction to the war: why it began, why it continued, who the main actors were, and how they related to each other.
While it's fresh in mind, and for myself as much as anything, the basic story as laid out here is:
* Lebanon was by the Ottoman era an unusually diverse subsection of the empire, with significant Shi'a, Druze, and Christian minorities. The Christians in particular welcomed military protection from the French from the 19th century onward, culminating in the French mandate post-WWI. It was separated from the rest of Syria because of a Christian desire not to be overwhelmed in a Muslim-majority state; Druze and Shi'a tacitly shared this goal.
* After rejecting the Vichy occupiers in favor of the Free French in the middle of WWII, the major ethnic factions came to a modus vivendi in 1943, where they agreed to an independent state with a Christian president, a Sunni prime minister, and Shi'a speaker of parliament. "Christian Lebanese pledged their respect to Lebanon’s Arab character and promised to reject any formal alliance of protection with a Western power. Muslims, in return, agreed to accept Lebanese sovereignty and to shun any attempt to integrate Lebanon into a broader Arab or Islamic state."
* The ensuing nation was inherently unstable and Shi'a in particular were economically and politically cut out of the deal. Palestinian refugees post-1948 endured second-class treatment and disrupted the demographic balance. But tourism and finance took off and at least some segment of the population got very rich.
* While not the first thing to threaten the balance (1948 and Nasserism did beforehand), the Six-Day War was the major turning point. The Palestinian refugee population spiked, and the PLO developed into a major fighting force as the Arab world realized they couldn't defeat Israel in normal combat but maybe could through terrorism. Arafat began building a state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon and attacking Israel which periodically invaded to retaliate.
* The situation worsened after the Black September civil war in Jordan in 1970, after which King Hussein expelled Arafat and the PLO into Lebanon permanently, making it the PLO's only base of operations.
* PLO impunity and arrogance, and their tendency to provoke Israeli incursions, gnawed at Maronites, as did the shifting demographic balance. In 1975 this spills into open massacres between the PLO and Ketaeb (the Phalange), by then the major Christian militia run by Bashir Gemayel. The war is on.
* Beirut is divided, there are floor-by-floor fights for control of hotels. Behind the Palestinians are a variety of mostly Sunni leftists (Nasserists, Communists, etc.) as well as the Druze Popular Socialist Party, driven by Kamal Jumblatt's ideological convictions.
* Fearing that a leftist victory would destabilize the country and invite a full-on Israeli invasion, Syria's Hafez al-Assad intervenes on the side of the Christians, baffling anyone who knew him as a secular Arab nationalist and socialist. He effectively ends the war temporarily. He kills Jumblatt, temporarily moving the Druze off the board.
* Once in Lebanon, though, Syria moved away from the Christians in favor of developing Muslim allies. Feeling abandoned, the Christians continue to arm up and ally with Israel. "Between 1977 and 1982, a sullen three-way stalemate existed among the Christians, grouped behind the Lebanese Forces and armed by Israel; the alliance of the left, the remnants of the National Movement reinforced by the PLO; and Syria."
* Amid the stalemate, Israel continues to periodically invade, most notably in the 1978 Litani Operation, earning the wrath of the mostly Shia population in the South, which has yet to become a major force in the war.
* In 1982, newly appointed Israeli defense minister Ariel Sharon has a chance to conduct a full-scale invasion of Lebanon, using a failed PLO assassination attempt against an Israeli ambassador as a causus belli. He goes far beyond the south and into Beirut. To save his own troops, he conducts massive bombing operations, "saturation bombing on the scale of the World War II attack on Dresden."
* US diplomat Philip Habib negotiates an evacuation of the PLO, under the pressure of the bombings. Arafat and the organization leave for Tunis. Remaining Palestinians in Beirut are largely women, children, and old men. A Multinational Force (MNF) of US and other troops help with the evacuation.
* A key part of the Israeli plan is installing Bashir Gemayel as president, ensuring they have a close ally in charge of the country. They succeed in getting parliament to elect him. Shortly thereafter he is assassinated, we now know on the orders of Syria/Assad. In reprisal, the Phalange conducts the Sabra and Shatila massacres, with IDF support. "The inhabitants of Shatila were mostly the young and old and the wives, mothers, and sisters the fedayeen had left behind under Western assurances of their safety." The US and allies send another Multinational Force in response to the atrocities. Israel retreats to the south.
* Syria and their new allies, the Druze (now under Jumblatt's son Walid), act to undermine the Israel/Christian alliance, now headed by new president Amin Gemayel, Bashir's less hot-headed older brother. They begin shelling from the mountains. Gemayel successfully gets the US to have Navy ships fire on Druze positions, killing numerous civilians, many of them (importantly) Sh'ia.
* Incensed by years of neglect and discrimination and newly empowered by the Iranian Revolution, Sh'ia political movements had been quiet but growing in the early war. Two major factions emerged: Amal (founded by a cleric but mostly secular, want one-person one-vote instead of powersharing), and Hezbollah (openly theocratic, backed by Iran and literal IRGC soldiers).
* Shi'a radicals (probably Hezbollah) blow up the Multinational Force barracks, killing 307 people, 241 of whom are US military. "British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, through an aide, affirmed, 'By attempting to bomb the Multi-National Force out of Lebanon, the extremists … have in a perverse way confirmed the success of the force in helping stabilize the country.'" (What the fuck?) Reagan withdraws after Muslim forces take the old hotel district in Ras Beirut.
* Hezbollah begins a string of hostage-takings of Westerners and murders Malcolm Kerr, Steve's dad and the American University in Beirut president. It builds alliances with Palestinian groups, united by a burning hatred of Israel.
* Around 1983/1984, Syria begins taking action against Arafat (who has returned from Tunis to Tripoli) and the PLO, first by funding a Fatah splinter group run by Abu Musa, who gets Arafat to leave again. By 1985, PLO fighters are coming back, so Syria backs Amal to attack refugee camps in what becomes known as the "camp wars," culminating in mass starvation and cannibalism within the camps. In 1987, the First Intifada breaks out and Amal stops attacking Palestinians in solidarity. Syria backs Abu Musa again to keep on the pressure.
* In 1984, Amal has emerged as the most powerful actor in the country and sees an opportunity to seize it entirely. This requires dislodging Druze and Palestinians from their positions, as well as fighting their fellow Sh'ia in Hezbollah. This pushes the Druze and Palestinians into an alliance that repels Amal in the mountains. Syria is forced to watch as Amal and the Druze, who are both supposed to be its proxies, kill each other.
* After the camp wars end with the intifada, fighting heats up between Amal and Hezbollah in Beirut in the "war of the brothers," prompted both by territorial ambitions and by Hezbollah's support of the Palestinians that Amal had assaulted.
* Amin Gemayel cannot be successfully replaced as president in 1988 because parliament cannot agree on a choice. He anoints his preference, Gen. Michel Aoun, as acting president, and prime minister Selim Hoss claims the presidency as well. Effectively two administrations are coexisting, one recognized by the Christians and Israel, and the other by Muslims and Syria.
Mackey's book cuts off here. I wish in the 2006 edition she had added even a short chapter giving us another two years, because the war would end in 1990 under the terms of the Taif Agreement, accepting Syrian hegemony for the time being (and until 2005, it would turn out) and modifying the power-sharing deal of 1943.
I also wonder about the reliability of some of her anecdotes. During the 1975 War of the Hotels, did a retreating Maronite soldier really play "Yesterday" on the Holiday Inn's lobby piano? Is there really a t-shirt of "the cartoon character Garfield, defiantly clutching a Lebanese flag in one hand and a rifle in the other" and the inscription "I survived Beirut"? If so, can I buy one?
Overall though it gets the job done. It's a baffling conflict, full of betrayals and alliance shifts and ill-fated foreign interventions and players who suddenly emerge and change everything (like the Shi'a in 1983). You can't write an entirely non-confusing book about it, but this is about as clear as I think one can hope to be. One of the goals I set out for myself was "understand why it's so crazy that Michel Aoun and Hezbollah are allies as of the late '00s" and I think I get that now.
While it's fresh in mind, and for myself as much as anything, the basic story as laid out here is:
* Lebanon was by the Ottoman era an unusually diverse subsection of the empire, with significant Shi'a, Druze, and Christian minorities. The Christians in particular welcomed military protection from the French from the 19th century onward, culminating in the French mandate post-WWI. It was separated from the rest of Syria because of a Christian desire not to be overwhelmed in a Muslim-majority state; Druze and Shi'a tacitly shared this goal.
* After rejecting the Vichy occupiers in favor of the Free French in the middle of WWII, the major ethnic factions came to a modus vivendi in 1943, where they agreed to an independent state with a Christian president, a Sunni prime minister, and Shi'a speaker of parliament. "Christian Lebanese pledged their respect to Lebanon’s Arab character and promised to reject any formal alliance of protection with a Western power. Muslims, in return, agreed to accept Lebanese sovereignty and to shun any attempt to integrate Lebanon into a broader Arab or Islamic state."
* The ensuing nation was inherently unstable and Shi'a in particular were economically and politically cut out of the deal. Palestinian refugees post-1948 endured second-class treatment and disrupted the demographic balance. But tourism and finance took off and at least some segment of the population got very rich.
* While not the first thing to threaten the balance (1948 and Nasserism did beforehand), the Six-Day War was the major turning point. The Palestinian refugee population spiked, and the PLO developed into a major fighting force as the Arab world realized they couldn't defeat Israel in normal combat but maybe could through terrorism. Arafat began building a state-within-a-state in southern Lebanon and attacking Israel which periodically invaded to retaliate.
* The situation worsened after the Black September civil war in Jordan in 1970, after which King Hussein expelled Arafat and the PLO into Lebanon permanently, making it the PLO's only base of operations.
* PLO impunity and arrogance, and their tendency to provoke Israeli incursions, gnawed at Maronites, as did the shifting demographic balance. In 1975 this spills into open massacres between the PLO and Ketaeb (the Phalange), by then the major Christian militia run by Bashir Gemayel. The war is on.
* Beirut is divided, there are floor-by-floor fights for control of hotels. Behind the Palestinians are a variety of mostly Sunni leftists (Nasserists, Communists, etc.) as well as the Druze Popular Socialist Party, driven by Kamal Jumblatt's ideological convictions.
* Fearing that a leftist victory would destabilize the country and invite a full-on Israeli invasion, Syria's Hafez al-Assad intervenes on the side of the Christians, baffling anyone who knew him as a secular Arab nationalist and socialist. He effectively ends the war temporarily. He kills Jumblatt, temporarily moving the Druze off the board.
* Once in Lebanon, though, Syria moved away from the Christians in favor of developing Muslim allies. Feeling abandoned, the Christians continue to arm up and ally with Israel. "Between 1977 and 1982, a sullen three-way stalemate existed among the Christians, grouped behind the Lebanese Forces and armed by Israel; the alliance of the left, the remnants of the National Movement reinforced by the PLO; and Syria."
* Amid the stalemate, Israel continues to periodically invade, most notably in the 1978 Litani Operation, earning the wrath of the mostly Shia population in the South, which has yet to become a major force in the war.
* In 1982, newly appointed Israeli defense minister Ariel Sharon has a chance to conduct a full-scale invasion of Lebanon, using a failed PLO assassination attempt against an Israeli ambassador as a causus belli. He goes far beyond the south and into Beirut. To save his own troops, he conducts massive bombing operations, "saturation bombing on the scale of the World War II attack on Dresden."
* US diplomat Philip Habib negotiates an evacuation of the PLO, under the pressure of the bombings. Arafat and the organization leave for Tunis. Remaining Palestinians in Beirut are largely women, children, and old men. A Multinational Force (MNF) of US and other troops help with the evacuation.
* A key part of the Israeli plan is installing Bashir Gemayel as president, ensuring they have a close ally in charge of the country. They succeed in getting parliament to elect him. Shortly thereafter he is assassinated, we now know on the orders of Syria/Assad. In reprisal, the Phalange conducts the Sabra and Shatila massacres, with IDF support. "The inhabitants of Shatila were mostly the young and old and the wives, mothers, and sisters the fedayeen had left behind under Western assurances of their safety." The US and allies send another Multinational Force in response to the atrocities. Israel retreats to the south.
* Syria and their new allies, the Druze (now under Jumblatt's son Walid), act to undermine the Israel/Christian alliance, now headed by new president Amin Gemayel, Bashir's less hot-headed older brother. They begin shelling from the mountains. Gemayel successfully gets the US to have Navy ships fire on Druze positions, killing numerous civilians, many of them (importantly) Sh'ia.
* Incensed by years of neglect and discrimination and newly empowered by the Iranian Revolution, Sh'ia political movements had been quiet but growing in the early war. Two major factions emerged: Amal (founded by a cleric but mostly secular, want one-person one-vote instead of powersharing), and Hezbollah (openly theocratic, backed by Iran and literal IRGC soldiers).
* Shi'a radicals (probably Hezbollah) blow up the Multinational Force barracks, killing 307 people, 241 of whom are US military. "British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, through an aide, affirmed, 'By attempting to bomb the Multi-National Force out of Lebanon, the extremists … have in a perverse way confirmed the success of the force in helping stabilize the country.'" (What the fuck?) Reagan withdraws after Muslim forces take the old hotel district in Ras Beirut.
* Hezbollah begins a string of hostage-takings of Westerners and murders Malcolm Kerr, Steve's dad and the American University in Beirut president. It builds alliances with Palestinian groups, united by a burning hatred of Israel.
* Around 1983/1984, Syria begins taking action against Arafat (who has returned from Tunis to Tripoli) and the PLO, first by funding a Fatah splinter group run by Abu Musa, who gets Arafat to leave again. By 1985, PLO fighters are coming back, so Syria backs Amal to attack refugee camps in what becomes known as the "camp wars," culminating in mass starvation and cannibalism within the camps. In 1987, the First Intifada breaks out and Amal stops attacking Palestinians in solidarity. Syria backs Abu Musa again to keep on the pressure.
* In 1984, Amal has emerged as the most powerful actor in the country and sees an opportunity to seize it entirely. This requires dislodging Druze and Palestinians from their positions, as well as fighting their fellow Sh'ia in Hezbollah. This pushes the Druze and Palestinians into an alliance that repels Amal in the mountains. Syria is forced to watch as Amal and the Druze, who are both supposed to be its proxies, kill each other.
* After the camp wars end with the intifada, fighting heats up between Amal and Hezbollah in Beirut in the "war of the brothers," prompted both by territorial ambitions and by Hezbollah's support of the Palestinians that Amal had assaulted.
* Amin Gemayel cannot be successfully replaced as president in 1988 because parliament cannot agree on a choice. He anoints his preference, Gen. Michel Aoun, as acting president, and prime minister Selim Hoss claims the presidency as well. Effectively two administrations are coexisting, one recognized by the Christians and Israel, and the other by Muslims and Syria.
Mackey's book cuts off here. I wish in the 2006 edition she had added even a short chapter giving us another two years, because the war would end in 1990 under the terms of the Taif Agreement, accepting Syrian hegemony for the time being (and until 2005, it would turn out) and modifying the power-sharing deal of 1943.
I also wonder about the reliability of some of her anecdotes. During the 1975 War of the Hotels, did a retreating Maronite soldier really play "Yesterday" on the Holiday Inn's lobby piano? Is there really a t-shirt of "the cartoon character Garfield, defiantly clutching a Lebanese flag in one hand and a rifle in the other" and the inscription "I survived Beirut"? If so, can I buy one?
Overall though it gets the job done. It's a baffling conflict, full of betrayals and alliance shifts and ill-fated foreign interventions and players who suddenly emerge and change everything (like the Shi'a in 1983). You can't write an entirely non-confusing book about it, but this is about as clear as I think one can hope to be. One of the goals I set out for myself was "understand why it's so crazy that Michel Aoun and Hezbollah are allies as of the late '00s" and I think I get that now.
December 19, 2017
Of all the books I've read on this period of Lebanon's history, this is the closest I've found to a "short and sweet" one that simply explains what was happening and why to a reader who doesn't know much about the subject. Yes, it is over 300 pages, but Mackey writes in a very matter-of-fact way without too many wasted words. If you're looking for a Who/What/When/Where/Why explainer on the Lebanese Civil War that you can finish in a couple of weeks, this book is the best you're gonna get.
February 11, 2019
TLDR: Easy to read, vivid, great explanation of what happened and why, who were the actors and what were the defining problems. "The complete idiot's guide to the Lebanese civil war". Highly recommended
I've graduated from the faculty of oriental studies, lived in Syria and visited Lebanon twice. Still, before reading this book my understanding of the Lebanese civil war was "...unclear as to who was doing what to whom and why.” This "why" for me were either religious feuds or Palestinian refugees and their destabilizing influence.
After reading the book, the picture has clarified greatly, as Sandra Mackey gives an in-depth depiction on Lebanon's intricate social structure and explains roots of the civil war that broke out in 1975 with each major side's motivation explained through historical retrospective and current balance of power. It is actually stunning how this calamity seemed impossible yet turned out unavoidable.
Apart from Lebanon-specific story, the author reveals for the non-specialist reader problems like westernization or fundamentalization dilemma or schism between sunni and shia that is applied to the bigger picture of the muslim middle east.
All in all it is a great read for those interested in history of the middle east. Some even say that Lebanon is the microcosm of the Arab world, so if you want to understand the processes that shaped that region as we see it today - go dive in this book, it won't leave you bored or indifferent
I've graduated from the faculty of oriental studies, lived in Syria and visited Lebanon twice. Still, before reading this book my understanding of the Lebanese civil war was "...unclear as to who was doing what to whom and why.” This "why" for me were either religious feuds or Palestinian refugees and their destabilizing influence.
After reading the book, the picture has clarified greatly, as Sandra Mackey gives an in-depth depiction on Lebanon's intricate social structure and explains roots of the civil war that broke out in 1975 with each major side's motivation explained through historical retrospective and current balance of power. It is actually stunning how this calamity seemed impossible yet turned out unavoidable.
Apart from Lebanon-specific story, the author reveals for the non-specialist reader problems like westernization or fundamentalization dilemma or schism between sunni and shia that is applied to the bigger picture of the muslim middle east.
All in all it is a great read for those interested in history of the middle east. Some even say that Lebanon is the microcosm of the Arab world, so if you want to understand the processes that shaped that region as we see it today - go dive in this book, it won't leave you bored or indifferent
March 3, 2016
This is an authentic telling of politics in Lebanon. Being a Lebanese who knows what happened and is reading about it from somebody else's perspective made my reading experience different but still enjoyable, morbidly at points. I wish Mackey continued telling story till after 1985, perhaps to 1990 or 1991. I felt the ending came abrupt. I would have preferred the book not ending with the influence of Iran but rather something more local...
September 22, 2024
video stream about Lebanon including references to this book: https://youtube.com/live/gsWfs1-zFLU?
While this book is about Lebanon, it's impossible to understand the stresses that country is under without relation to the Palestinian issue. People who want to get a better sense of the regional stresses created by Israel's persecution of the Palestinians would do well to read books like this one, though in doing so, they may find additional interest in learning about countries like Lebanon, which have plenty of their own problems, of which the Palestinians are not even the most recent.
Lebanon is an riddle, inside of a mystery, wrapped up in an enigma, though I feel that it is much worthier of that phrase than Russia, which doesn't seem so mysterious in the 21st century. Mackey has a gift for taking the complexities of this country and laying them out in a way that will be easier to comprehend, even if tying together all the threads may prove difficult even for Lebanese when asked about their country.
"What Western tourists wanted in Beirut was to snatch a taste of the Middle East without having to endure the dirt and clamor of Damascus and Cairo."
(quoting Kamal Jumblatt) "I am a pacifist, yes, but sometimes you have to get those bastards."
(quoting Kamal Jumblatt) "There is no such thing as a Lebanese community. There is no Lebanese social unit. Lebanon is a collection of sects and socio-religious communities. This...is not a society, not a community, not a nation."
"Over thousands of years, the Lebanese developed a culture that perhaps only they can truly understand — a culture in which the trunk is Arab and the branches pure Lebanese."
(quoting Nabih Berri) "[We] behave like tribes instead of like people of one country. The 1943 Pact that we created is a partitionist pact. It helped make us build a farm, not a country..."
(text from a Dwayne Powell cartoon in 1983) "OK, Marines — We're faced with Druze and Shia Moslems being backed by the Syrians against the Christian Phalangists. The Druze and Shias are divided among themselves, as are the Christians. The Israeli pullout is leaving a gap that the 'Lebanese army' probably can't fill and the PLO is creeping back in...Nobody likes us, and it's all preceded by 2,000 years of bloodshed. Any questions?"
While this book is about Lebanon, it's impossible to understand the stresses that country is under without relation to the Palestinian issue. People who want to get a better sense of the regional stresses created by Israel's persecution of the Palestinians would do well to read books like this one, though in doing so, they may find additional interest in learning about countries like Lebanon, which have plenty of their own problems, of which the Palestinians are not even the most recent.
Lebanon is an riddle, inside of a mystery, wrapped up in an enigma, though I feel that it is much worthier of that phrase than Russia, which doesn't seem so mysterious in the 21st century. Mackey has a gift for taking the complexities of this country and laying them out in a way that will be easier to comprehend, even if tying together all the threads may prove difficult even for Lebanese when asked about their country.
"What Western tourists wanted in Beirut was to snatch a taste of the Middle East without having to endure the dirt and clamor of Damascus and Cairo."
(quoting Kamal Jumblatt) "I am a pacifist, yes, but sometimes you have to get those bastards."
(quoting Kamal Jumblatt) "There is no such thing as a Lebanese community. There is no Lebanese social unit. Lebanon is a collection of sects and socio-religious communities. This...is not a society, not a community, not a nation."
"Over thousands of years, the Lebanese developed a culture that perhaps only they can truly understand — a culture in which the trunk is Arab and the branches pure Lebanese."
(quoting Nabih Berri) "[We] behave like tribes instead of like people of one country. The 1943 Pact that we created is a partitionist pact. It helped make us build a farm, not a country..."
(text from a Dwayne Powell cartoon in 1983) "OK, Marines — We're faced with Druze and Shia Moslems being backed by the Syrians against the Christian Phalangists. The Druze and Shias are divided among themselves, as are the Christians. The Israeli pullout is leaving a gap that the 'Lebanese army' probably can't fill and the PLO is creeping back in...Nobody likes us, and it's all preceded by 2,000 years of bloodshed. Any questions?"
February 6, 2023
I doubt there's a more complete example of how the insanity of righteous religiosity and nationalism leads to death and suffering than the Lebanon of the 1980s. Christians, Muslims, Palestinians, Jews, Druze, Maronites, Shiites, Sunni, Israelis, Syrians, Americans, French, and many other players in the most dysfunctional and tangled web imaginable. Beautifully written, cohesive, clear. I'm now caught up to 1988...
October 10, 2019
Excellent book, very informative. It gave me a great general view on the Lebanese situation and on the several groups who share the country. Of course, it's a bit outdated, published as it was still during the war. But it's a great read, never boring, which is not easy when one writes about these subjects.
June 18, 2024
I think this is a great primer into Lebanon's civil war and its ravaging sectarianism. Didn't cover too many chronological details of the war, but it did seem to cover the most important. Anyways, for a first book on the subject, it's more important to understand the tragic dynamics at play, and this did just that for me.
February 2, 2019
This book is a good briefing on a very complicated part history. It tried not to be confusing, but unfortunately I was still very confused. Still, it’s a good overview and I feel I have a (slghtly?) better grasp of Lebanon’s history.
February 16, 2021
As relevant and prescient in 2021 as it was in 1989. Normally, I'd say books like this are written at the risk of oversimplification - this one may have been written to the benefit of it.
March 11, 2022
Great book, easy to read, great insights on the history of my country.
December 20, 2024
Great explanation on a difficult country to understand
April 26, 2012
This is a compellingly readable book about an immensely complex subject. As history, it provides a vivid picture of the almost countless competing political and social interests that have brought about the "death" of Lebanon. Existing until 1975 as a kind of mirage on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, Lebanon fell into a years-long civil war played out most dramatically in the international media as heavily armed militia blew apart the city of Beirut and then, later, as one westerner after another was taken hostage by clandestine insurgent groups. Mackey's argument is that Lebanon has never existed in any real way as a nation, its affairs managed by various Christian and Muslim mafia-like families, a precarious arrangement that functioned in the absence of an actual government and for good or ill falling within the spheres of influence of other countries.
The resulting social inequities permitted great wealth to exist side-by-side with conditions of abject poverty, and all may have continued indefinitely except for the mass displacement of Palestinian refugees by a militant Israel after 1948 and the rise of militant Shiism that came with the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. When scattered skirmishes among armed groups exploded into full-scale civil war, the author argues, there was nothing to stop the collapse of all order. Intervention by Israel and Syria, the UN and the US merely confounded the tangled objectives of the combatants, while escalating their brutality and further polarizing those caught without mercy in the crossfire.
Reading this book is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Calamity follows upon calamity with the inevitability of Greek tragedy. While it ends in 1988, when it was first published, the author's account of the rise of Islamist-inspired Hizbollah points directly to events that fill the news 20 years later. This is an excellent primer for readers who want to understand the continual bloodshed in this tiny country - once called the Switzerland of the Middle East. Mackey writes fluidly and coherently, enlivening her historian's distance with a journalist's on-the-ground observations of key moments, public figures, and the miseries and sufferings of unnamed noncombatants. There are extensive notes, a lengthy bibliography, and a helpful index.
The resulting social inequities permitted great wealth to exist side-by-side with conditions of abject poverty, and all may have continued indefinitely except for the mass displacement of Palestinian refugees by a militant Israel after 1948 and the rise of militant Shiism that came with the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. When scattered skirmishes among armed groups exploded into full-scale civil war, the author argues, there was nothing to stop the collapse of all order. Intervention by Israel and Syria, the UN and the US merely confounded the tangled objectives of the combatants, while escalating their brutality and further polarizing those caught without mercy in the crossfire.
Reading this book is like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Calamity follows upon calamity with the inevitability of Greek tragedy. While it ends in 1988, when it was first published, the author's account of the rise of Islamist-inspired Hizbollah points directly to events that fill the news 20 years later. This is an excellent primer for readers who want to understand the continual bloodshed in this tiny country - once called the Switzerland of the Middle East. Mackey writes fluidly and coherently, enlivening her historian's distance with a journalist's on-the-ground observations of key moments, public figures, and the miseries and sufferings of unnamed noncombatants. There are extensive notes, a lengthy bibliography, and a helpful index.
February 28, 2016
A very good book on the Lebanese civil war. The author gives a good break down of the rival ethnic and religious factions that jostle for power over the nation. From the French mandate, to Independence, to the National Pact, Mackey lays the groundwork for an understanding of the history and forces that shape the nation. Lebanon is not a country that westerners will find easily understandable. It's government is described on Wikipedia as a "unitary parliamentary
multi-confessionalist republic." What this translates to, is a nation with an informal agreement that a Maronite Christian will always be president, a Sunni will always be prime minister, and a house speaker that will always be Shiite. Different religious groups, such as Greek Orthodox and Druze occupy other positions. Mackey places a good amount of the blame for the civil war on the inflexibility of the political structure. A corrupt system of patronage and old societal forces desperate to hold on to power at all costs contribute to Lebanon's collapse into war. Ultimately, despite outside political manipulation and maneuvering from the United States, Syria, Israel, the PLO, and Iran, she places the blame for the war with the Lebanese. As other reviewers have noted, this subject is complex and it's unreasonable to expect a full understanding of Lebanon from one book, but this is an excellent introduction.
multi-confessionalist republic." What this translates to, is a nation with an informal agreement that a Maronite Christian will always be president, a Sunni will always be prime minister, and a house speaker that will always be Shiite. Different religious groups, such as Greek Orthodox and Druze occupy other positions. Mackey places a good amount of the blame for the civil war on the inflexibility of the political structure. A corrupt system of patronage and old societal forces desperate to hold on to power at all costs contribute to Lebanon's collapse into war. Ultimately, despite outside political manipulation and maneuvering from the United States, Syria, Israel, the PLO, and Iran, she places the blame for the war with the Lebanese. As other reviewers have noted, this subject is complex and it's unreasonable to expect a full understanding of Lebanon from one book, but this is an excellent introduction.
January 26, 2009
Well written, it is more of an introduction to the Lebanese civil war, it's roots, and the confessional groups that are fighting. It's written from the perspective mostly of western involvement, as well as Syria and Israel.
January 12, 2008
A decent overview of post-WWII Lebanon, particularly the civil war period. The book is too brief to go into much detail on any one event, but it's a good outline of the issues.
August 23, 2009
The analysis is great, but I think the historical details could have been organized more clearly.
July 5, 2010
I guess I should have known better by the title "Lebanon: Death of a Nation," but this book was one of the most profoundly depressing I've ever read.
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July 27, 2011Heartbreaking.
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November 7, 2009Good read.
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