Lebanon Books

Recipes and Remembrances from an Eastern Mediterranean Kitchen: A Culinary Journey through Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan

Sonia Uvezian

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 22 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

The one eastern Mediterranean cookbook I wouldn't be without 5 out of 5 stars.
54 of 58 people found this review helpful.

I was thoroughly disgusted to read the baseless criticisms of this superb cookbook. It is precisely to obtain an accurate account of the cookery of this region along with first-rate recipes that one needs to own "Recipes and Remembrances." Although Claudia Roden's "A New Book of Middle Eastern Food" is better than Paula Wolfert's "The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean," when it comes to recipes and text neither can approach "Recipes and Remembrances" in quality. I have cooked extensively from many Middle Eastern cookbooks, including these three, and I can honestly say that Uvezian's book upholds the highest standards of eastern Mediterranean/Middle Eastern cooking and is in a class by itself.

Editorial Review:

This culinary milestone has been hailed as a masterpiece, a classic, and the first and last word on eastern Mediterranean cooking. A welcome blend of scholarship and entertaining reading, this revelatory work features a wide range of authentic, clearly written recipes, many personal reminiscences, impressive culinary history, valuable information on ingredients, meals, and traditions, stunning period illustrations, and much more.

Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon (Nation Books)

Robert Fisk

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

With the Israeli-Palestinian crisis reaching wartime levels, where is the latest confrontation between these two old foes leading? Robert Fisk’s explosive Pity the Nation recounts Sharon and Arafat’s first deadly encounter in Lebanon in the early 1980s and explains why the Israel–Palestine relationship seems so intractable. A remarkable combination of war reporting and analysis by an author who has witnessed the carnage of Beirut for twenty-five years, Fisk, the first journalist to whom bin Laden announced his jihad against the U.S., is one of the world's most fearless and honored foreign correspondents. He spares no one in this saga of the civil war and subsequent Israeli invasion: the PLO, whose thuggish behavior alienated most Lebanese; the various Lebanese factions, whose appalling brutality spared no one; the Syrians, who supported first the Christians and then the Muslims in their attempt to control Lebanon; and the Israelis, who tried to install their own puppets and, with their 1982 invasion, committed massive war crimes of their own. It includes a moving finale that recounts the travails of Fisk’s friend Terry Anderson who was kidnapped by Hezbollah and spent 2,454 days in captivity. Fully updated to include the Israeli withdrawl from south Lebanon and Ariel Sharon's electoral victory over Ehud Barak, this edition has sixty pages of new material and a new preface. "Robert Fisk’s enormous book about Lebanon’s desperate travails is one of the most distinguished in recent times."—Edward Said

Beirut Diary: A Husband Held Hostage and a Wife Determined to Set Him Free

Sis Levin

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A worth reading personal ordeal, mirroring Lebanon's, 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is a personal ordeal worth reading.
We saw how many `hostages' looked pale and washed out as they were released from captivity.
Their predicament was equal to that of the Lebanese people. It was indeed a mirror image.
The storm broke in Lebanon, and in Beirut in particular on 13 April 1975, ever since we heard the boom of artillery fires in short days and long nights.
Foreign factions were `simply' fighting each other; directly or by proxy, on our land. The land that had once been a quiet haven in a turbulent Middle East.
The guns of the warring factions changed the face of Lebanon in the hope that one day it would also change the face of the Middle East.
Unknown names of dead bodies leapt up into the Newspapers headlines every morning.

Against us was ranged the perpetual argument propagated by the international press, to add insult to our injuries, that the war was `a fight between Christians and Muslims Lebanese'. This was phoney-baloney and utterly fraudulent. This was offensive, pretending ignorance with nefarious ends. Very few told the world the significant fact that this was a war by proxy. All Lebanese have always been peace-loving people.

With the closure of Beirut's only Airport, many Lebanese, seeking emigration, were virtually driven into the Mediterranean.
Most of the rich had already left.
Hundreds of thousands of my people were displaced from their villages and rolled out heading for more relatively peaceful places.
Lebanese could not understand where the enemy was hiding and fighting.
They all believed though that Lebanon will remain invincible and in the end its banner will be held up high enough to be seen in each corner of this small and beautiful country.
Many young and innocent `boys and girls', some in their teens, had rallied `to the cause' as they saw it.
I witnessed the melting away of Beirut (West) in the hellish days of the summer of 1982, and each 24 hours I though that would probably be the last for me. I managed to send my wife and my three children to the mountain for their security and stay put in Beirut to work for living.
My people were striving to wait in queues to fetch bread, vegetables and water to feed their children. Some even killed by stray bullets, and worse still, many perished by bombs (RPG, B7 or whatever).
Lines of cars were threatened waiting to be filled with petrol.

We saw different militias from all walks of life. From the East and the West, bordering the Arabian Sea, the Red sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the hinterland of Asia - paid to `fight', they didn't even know who the enemy was?. I saw many of them, and I swear to God they couldn't have possibly been Lebanese.

Beirut slept and woke up on the brink of panic but the brave majority never lost faith; they were convinced that our setback was temporary.
We saw how `international politics' were beginning to bolt, without proper explanation we were left alone to suffer, and it was not difficult for us to draw conclusions - we must have been stupid to `welcome every body to our country with open arms and our hearty - and innocent - "ahlan wasahlan" : Welcome.

Mrs. Levin:
Your husband was held `hostage' perhaps in a cell like 10x10 feet. The Lebanese, too, were held hostages in our four thousand square miles, for as long as 17 years.
Your husband didn't deserve his ordeal, nor did the Lebanese people.
Your husband was held hostage in Lebanon, but not by Lebanese. No Lebanese wanted your husband to share our fate.
Nevertheless, on behalf of my people I offer our sincere sympathies and my apologies for any inconvenience this sad event had caused you both (or indeed have caused us all).

Hezbollah: A Short History (Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics)

Augustus Richard Norton

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Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Most policymakers in the United States and Israel have it wrong. Hezbollah isn't a simple terrorist organization--nor is it likely to disappear soon. Following Israel's war against Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, the Shi'i group--which combines the functions of a militia, a social service and public works provider, and a political party--is more popular than ever in the Middle East while retaining its strong base of support in Lebanon. And Hezbollah didn't merely confront Israel and withstand its military onslaught. Hezbollah's postwar reconstruction efforts were judged better than the U.S. government's response to Hurricane Katrina--not by al-Jazeera, but by an American TV journalist. In Hezbollah, one of the world's leading experts on Hezbollah has written the essential guide to understanding the complexities and paradoxes of a group that remains entrenched at the heart of Middle East politics.

With unmatched clarity and authority, Augustus Richard Norton tells how Hezbollah developed, how it has evolved, and what direction it might take in the future. Far from being a one-dimensional terrorist group, Norton explains, Hezbollah is a "janus-faced" organization in the middle of an incomplete metamorphosis from extremism to mundane politics, an evolution whose outcome is far from certain. Beginning as a terrorist cat's-paw of Iran, Hezbollah has since transformed itself into an impressive political party with an admiring Lebanese constituency, but it has also insisted on maintaining the potent militia that forced Israel to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000 after almost two decades of occupation.

The most accessible, informed, and balanced analysis of the group yet written, Hezbollah is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the Middle East.

From Beirut to Jerusalem: Revised Edition

Thomas L. Friedman

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 180 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Understanding The Middle East 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I have always admired Thomas Friedman as an insightful writer of truth. Although a Jew his writing is impartial. He clearly states that he has friends both Israeli and Arab, and has been criticized by his American countrymen. I have often wondered why his opinions are not solicited by U.S. government officials, but perhaps no one wants to face the truth that on all sides of the Middle Eastern difficulties there are human beings whose opinions need to be heard and their concerns recognized.

In an spellbinding anecdotal presentation of the facts Mr. Friedman treats the reader with substance often lacking in the usual reporting that at best presents a few highlights of daily events.

Kenneth Ray Taylor author of Standup Comedian: The Secret and Beyond

The most interesting book on Middle East societies complexity 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I practically loved this book...the one I had read prior to such was "Pity the Nation" by Robert Fisk and I was honestly expecting it wouldn't have been as good...but I was wrong...

Friedman, a Jewish American and Middle East correspondent during the Lebanese civil war times, gives a full image of both Lebanese and Israeli societies, the Palestinian factor, and not only.

His social background does not influence him in any aspect and in no point can we accuse him of being partial towards one sect's or country's point of view...

Moreover, on the "Jerusalem" part; we are being induced into real aspects of the Israeli society - complex as the Lebanese one - and its attitude towards the Lebanese civil war, and this is something I was actually missing in books I have read till now referring to this region and period.

I should admit I didn't enjoy much the "advice parts" (where he is actually suggesting what should be done so as to resolve the Middle East crisis) but this is a question of personal taste...

A masterpiece I dare say, if this book does not get a 5 star review, which one does then?

Editorial Review:

This revised edition of the number-one bestseller and winner of the 1989 National Book Award includes the Pulitzer Prize Winning author's new, updated epilogue.

Mirror of the Arab World: Lebanon in Conflict

Sandra Mackey

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

How the recent history of Lebanon provides insight into the many trials currently facing the larger Arab community.

It is crucial to the interests of the West to grasp the complexities of the Arab world. In this clear, concise volume, Sandra Mackey provides a unique view of this tortured and tortuous region through the lens of Lebanon.

A small, fractured country at the gateway of the Arab east, Lebanon signals the challenges that the Arab world poses to itself and to the West. As Mackey vividly demonstrates, the Lebanese have experienced every issue currently roiling the Middle East: borders contrived by others, a weak state housing weak institutions, a Palestinian presence, civil war, resistance to societal and political change, Sunni/Shia sectarianism, occupation, militant Islam as a political ideology, conflict over the common identity essential to turning a fragile state into a viable nation, a troubled democratic tradition, and war perpetrated by forces inside and outside its borders. Lessons learned from these conflicts will ease understanding and resolution elsewhere.

Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel, and the Palestinians (Updated Edition) (South End Press Classics Series)

Noam Chomsky

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Total reviews: 55 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

First published in 1983, Fateful Triangle is a comprehensive indictment of what Noam Chomsky calls the "disgraceful and extremely dangerous" policy the United States has enacted towards Israel, particularly with regard to Israel's actions concerning the Palestinians. Supporters of Israel must willfully overlook or deny that nation's long history of human rights violations and military aggression, Chomsky writes, and they will continue to do so as long as Israel is strategically useful towards "the U.S. aim of eliminating possible threats, largely indigenous, to American domination of the Middle East region." In the course of elaborating his argument, Chomsky cuts through the myths and distortions that appear in mainstream media accounts; the damning facts that he so systematically assembles portray a government more brutally and overtly racist, perhaps, than even apartheid-era South Africa. Three new chapters, drawing upon material from Z magazine and other publications, incorporate such developments as the Palestinian uprising, Israel's war on Lebanon, and the ongoing "peace process."

Lebanon: A House Divided

Sandra Mackey

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Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

With a new introduction by the author, a seminal study of Lebanon's past, present, and future.

With the West's economic and security interests increasingly at stake in the Middle East, it is impossible to ignore Lebanon—a nation in all ways divided and tormented by the interplay between the West and the Arab world. Sandra Mackey delineates the multifarious culture that is Lebanon; carefully stripping away the complex stigmas of Lebanese politics, she brings each component into focus, priming readers on the conflicts between Sunni and Shia, Maronites and Druze, Christian and Muslim, Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Lebanon and Palestine, and Syria and Lebanon.

Covering Lebanon's history through the civil war of 1975-89, and with a new introduction on recent developments, 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 clarity of focus to the schisms that serve to divide and define Lebanon.

The War on Lebanon: A Reader

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Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Israel's 34-day bombardment of Lebanon in the summer of 2006-in which more than 1000 Lebanese civilians lost their lives-is one of the most tragic events to take place in the Middle East this century. It was unleashed in the context of the continued Israeli assault on the Palestinians, particularly in Gaza, as well as the US effort to "bring democracy" and redraw the map of the Middle East from Afghanistan to Iraq and perhaps to Iran.

What explains Hezbollah's capture of two Israeli soldiers and the scale of Israel's retaliation? Why did the US reject an early ceasefire, instead egging on Israel as it pummeled Lebanon and casualties mounted? Why did President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice believe the Lebanese and other Arabs would welcome the "birth pangs" of a "new Middle East" designed by the US and Israel? And where will it all lead? Can the party continue to be both part of Lebanon's parliament and an independent resistance movement? Will Lebanon become a modern, non-sectarian state or will the confessional order be further entrenched?

These and other vital questions are addressed in this collection of essays by internationally respected scholars and experts from around the world who examine the ethical, legal and strategic issues of the conflict, and analyze the consequences facing the region and the world in the wake of the Israeli invasion. Ultimately, the solution for Lebanon is intricately connected to the wider issues of the Middle East, including the right of the Palestinians to independence.

Contributors include: Rashid Khalidi ¥ Noam Chomsky ¥ Fawwaz Traboulsi ¥ Asa'd Abukhalil ¥ Lara Deeb ¥ Georges Corm ¥ Stephen Zunes ¥ Irene Gendzier ¥ Azmi Bishara ¥ Yitzhak Laor ¥ Rasha Salti ¥ Elias Khoury ¥ Ziad Majed ¥ Rami Khouri ¥ Assaf Kfoury ¥ Richard Falk ¥ Phyllis Bennis ¥ Haneen Sayed ¥ William Hartung ¥ Fred Halliday ¥ Nubar Hovsepian ¥ Ghassan Tueini ¥ and others

In The Path Of Hizbullah (Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East)

Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Of the many Islamist groups that have emerged within the Muslim world over the last two decades, perhaps none has had so great an impact on Middle Eastern and International affairs as Hizbullah, the Party of God. This group of mainly Lebanese Shi'ite Muslims gained both infamy and fame by its resort to militancy mixed with political pragmatism in the pursuit of its goals. The oscillation between these two extremes has left most scholars and policymakers perplexed. This book serves as a pathway for understanding not only Hizbullah but also for other Islamist groups and their challenges to contemporary politics. A. Nizar Hamzeh examines the Hizbullah of Lebanon through a structural analysis using original and archival sources. Based on a constructed theoretical framework from a number of theories on crisis conditions, leadership, political parties and guerrilla warfare, In the Path of Hizbullah stands alone in its qualitative and quantitative treatment of one of the most complex contemporary Islamist organizations and provides a view of the party's future.