Beirut

I'm not sure why I'm drawn to histories of cities from the former Ottoman empire, but this is the fourth one I've read in the past two or three years. All of them are heartbreaking: cosmopolitan paradises destroyed by sectarian violence. Beirut may be the most tragic because the end was so swift and so recent. This book has added poignancy in that the author was assassinated by a car bomb outside his home shortly after completing it.

The main focus is the era from the beginning of the nineteenth century to the eve of the civil war. The book traces all aspects of the city's growth and captures something of the feeling of what it must have been like to live in the city. The author does an admirable job explaining how the different regimes show more added to the character of the city and does as good a job as possible outlining the various forces that lead to the division of the city in 1975. Interestingly enough, it passes over the war itself, treating it as something of a coda to the city's life. show less

An oddly moving narrative history which reads like Kassir's swan song or sacrificial offering. Beirut, city by the sea, consumed by fetishes of glamour, beautiful in makeup, its mercantile spine dislocated again and again by the spasmodic leanings of confessionalism and nepotism... This history gives my childhood context where there was none, and corrects many dangerous assumptions I might have made out of ignorance. Pedantic and lengthy (and gorgeously translated from the French), with a focus on the 19th and 20th Centuries, Kassir's book sweeps summarily over the Ahdath and civil war before ending on a hopeless, almost bitter note which will forever transform how I think of recent efforts to restore the city. Kassir's powerful show more author's voice is consistent, but his devotion to the various periods in the city's history isn't, resulting in a jerky trip through time. Ultimately well, well worth the effort. show less