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 2005Beirut 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 writtenBeirut 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.

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 2005Beirut 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 writtenBeirut 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. Écochard’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