Lebanon

Lebanon: A History 600-2011 by William Harris, 283 pages

William Harris' Lebanon follows the history of the fascinatingly diverse peoples dwelling in the shadow of Mount Lebanon beginning with the Arab conquest and ending with the Arab Spring.  Down through the centuries, Maronite Christians, Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and the Druze have lived, fought, and suffered with each other as great empires rose and fell around them.  Last century's Maronite-led, Western-mediated attempt to unite this complex patchwork, further complicated by an extensive diaspora, into a single modern nation-state soon collapsed into sectarian strife, civil war, and a new series of foreign occupations.

Harris consciously concentrates on the political rather than cultural history of Lebanon, an odd decision for the history of a country that did not have an independent political existence until the twentieth century.  The result is a narrative offering a wealth of facts, but a paucity of understanding.