lebanon

See also the Syria readings. Arranged by 1) big-picture history, 2) political parties/sectarianism, 3) Lebanese state and parliament, 4) political biographies, 5) Israeli and Syrian occupations, 6) French mandate, 7) origins of Lebanese nationalism, 8) diaspora and emigration, 9) neoliberalism, 10) 2019 protests and economic crisis, 11) other topics in political economy, 12) armed groups, 13) colonialism and ottoman era, 14) films. Obviously some overlap between these.

Big Picture

• Traboulsi, Fawwaz. 2012. A History of Modern Lebanon. Pluto Press.

• Salibi, Kamal. 1990. A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered. University of California Press.

• Cammett, Melani. 2018. A Political Economy of the Middle East. Routledge.

• Beinin, Joel, Bassam Haddad, and Sherene Seikaly. 2020. A Critical Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa. Stanford University Press. [just read Abu-Rish’s chapter “Lebanon Beyond Exceptionalism”]

• طرابلسي, فواز. 2016. الطبقات الاجتماعية والسلطة السياسية في لبنان. بيروت: دار الساقي.

Political Parties, Sectarianism

• Ghosn, Faten, and Sarah E. Parkinson. 2019. “‘Finding’ Sectarianism and Strife in Lebanon.” PS: Political Science & Politics 52(3): 494–97.

• Jawad, Rana. 2009. Social Welfare and Religion in the Middle East: A Lebanese Perspective. Policy Press.

• Suleiman, Michael W. 1967. Political Parties in Lebanon: The Challenge of a Fragmented Political Culture. Cornell University Press.

• Salloukh, Bassel F., Rabie Barakat, Jinan S. Al-Habbal, Lara W. Khattab, and Shoghig Mikaelian. 2015. The Politics of Sectarianism in Postwar Lebanon. Pluto Press.

• Cammett, Melani. 2014. Compassionate Communalism: Welfare and Sectarianism in Lebanon. Cornell University Press.

• Daher, Joseph. 2016. Hezbollah: The Political Economy of Lebanon’s Party of God. Pluto Press.

• Di Peri, Rosita, and Irene Costantini. 2023. “Navigating the COVID-19 Pandemic in Consociational Systems: The Cases of Lebanon and Iraq.” The International Spectator 58(1): 128–45. 

Lebanese State

• Safieddine, Hicham. 2019. Banking on the State: The Financial Foundations of Lebanon. Stanford University Press.

• Salamey, Imad. 2013. The Government and Politics of Lebanon. Routledge.

• Weiss, Max. 2010. In the Shadow of Sectarianism: Law, Shiʿism, and the Making of Modern Lebanon. Harvard University Press.

• Khoury, Philip Shukry, and Joseph Kostiner. 1990. Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East. University of California Press.

• Salamey, Imad, and Rhys Payne. 2020. “Parliamentary Consociationalism in Lebanon: Equal Citizenry vs. Quotated Confessionalism.” In The Impact of Legislatures, Routledge, 170–92. 

Political Biographies

• Rowayheb, Marwan G. 2011. “Walid Jumblat and Political Alliances: The Politics of Adaptation.” Middle East Critique 20(1): 47–66. 

• Zeaiter, Haifa. 2019. “Inside The House of Michel Aoun: A Feuding Dynasty.” Raseef22. 

• Cleveland, William L. 2015. The Making of an Arab Nationalist: Ottomanism and Arabism in the Life and Thought of Sati’ Al-Husri. Princeton University Press.

• Ajami, Fouad. 1986. The Vanished Imam: Musa Al Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon. Cornell University Press. [warning: Ajami was a Bush-era neo-con].

• Halawi, Majed. 2019. A Lebanon Defied: Musa al-Sadr and the Shi’a Community. Routledge.

• Zamir, Meir. 1978. “Emile Eddé and the Territorial Integrity of Lebanon.” Middle Eastern Studies 14(2): 232–35.

• Lebanon’s Political Families: The Gemayel Dynasty. 2024. Al Jazeera Film.

• Lebanon’s Political Families: The Jumblatt Dynasty. 2024. Al Jazeera Film.

• Amel, Mahdi. 2020. Arab Marxism and National Liberation: Selected Writings of Mahdi Amel. BRILL.

• Nasrallah, Sayyed Hassan. 2020. Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Verso Books.

• See also Citizen Hariri. 

Israeli and Syria Occupations

• Norton, A. R. 2000. “Hizballah and the Israeli Withdrawal from Southern Lebanon.” Journal of Palestine studies 30(1): 22–35.

• Hirst, David. 2011. Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East. PublicAffairs.

• Knudsen, Are. 2010. “Acquiescence to Assassinations in Post-Civil War Lebanon?” Mediterranean Politics 15(1): 1–23. 

• Wight, David M. 2013. “Kissinger’s Levantine Dilemma: The Ford Administration and the Syrian Occupation of Lebanon.” Diplomatic History 37(1): 144–77.

• Weinberger, Naomi Joy. 1986. Syrian Intervention in Lebanon: The 1975-76 Civil War. Oxford University Press.

French Mandate

• Zamir, Meir. 1988. The Formation of Modern Lebanon. Cornell University Press.

• Ouahes, Idir. 2018. Syria and Lebanon Under the French Mandate: Cultural Imperialism and the Workings of Empire. Bloomsbury Publishing.

• Provence, Michael. 2017. The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East. Cambridge University Press.

• Thompson, Elizabeth. 2000. Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon. Columbia University Press. 

Origins of Lebanese Nationalism

• Hakim, Carol. 2013. The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea: 1840–1920. University of California Press.

• Philipp, Thomas. 2014. Jurji Zaidan and the Foundations of Arab Nationalism. Syracuse University Press.

• Kaufman, Asher. 2014. Reviving Phoenicia: The Search for Identity in Lebanon. Bloomsbury Publishing.

• Khater, Akram Fouad. 2001. Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender, and the Middle Class in Lebanon, 1870-1920. University of California Press.

• Salibi, Kamal S. 1971. “The Lebanese Identity.” Journal of Contemporary History 6(1): 76–86. 

• Anderson, Betty S. 2011. The American University of Beirut: Arab Nationalism and Liberal Education. University of Texas Press.

Diaspora and Emigration

• Saliba, Najib E. 1981. “Emigration from Syria.” Arab Studies Quarterly 3(1): 56–67.

• Bailony, Reem. 2018. “From Mandate Borders to the Diaspora: Rashaya’s Transnational Suffering And The Making Of Lebanon In 1925.” The Arab Studies Journal 26(2): 44–73.

• Blumi, Isa. 2013. Ottoman Refugees, 1878-1939: Migration in a Post-Imperial World. A&C Black. 

• Fahrenthold, Stacy D. 2019. Between the Ottomans and the Entente: The First World War in the Syrian and Lebanese Diaspora, 1908-1925. Oxford University Press.

Neoliberalism

• Baumann, Hannes. 2016. Citizen Hariri: Lebanon’s Neoliberal Reconstruction. Oxford University Press. 

• Gaspard, Toufic. 2003. A Political Economy of Lebanon, 1948-2002: The Limits of Laissez-Faire. BRILL.

• Abdel Samad, Maher. 2021. “Understanding The 2019-2020 Banking and Financial Crisis in Lebanon.” PhD Thesis. University of Pennsylvania.

• Abdo, Nabil, Dana Abed, Bachir Ayoub, and Nizar Aouad. 2020. “The IMF and Lebanon: The Long Road Ahead–An Assessment of How Lebanon’s Economy May Be Stabilized While Battling a Triple Crisis and Recovering from a Deadly Blast.” 

• Marot, Bruno. 2018. Developing Post-War Beirut (1990–2016): The Political Economy of 'Pegged Urbanization'. McGill University (Canada). 

• Khneisser, Mona. 2024. “The Political Economy of ‘Failure’ in The World Bank‐funded Bisri Dam in Lebanon.” Development and Change 55(3): 351–74. 

2019 Protests and Economic Crisis

• Hinrichsen, Simon. 2020. “Lebanon’s Spectacular Economic Collapse.” Jacobin. 

• Assouad, Lydia. 2021. Lebanon’s Political Economy: From Predatory to Self-Devouring. Carnegie Middle East Center Beirut.

• Ghosn, Natalie Ann, and Hanna Samir Kassab. 2024. The Fragility of the Lebanese State. Rowman & Littlefield.

• Bitar, Joseph. 2021. “The Monetary Crisis of Lebanon.” Review of Middle East Economics and Finance 17(2): 71–96. 

• Bitar, Joseph. 2021. “The Unique Dollarization Case of Lebanon.” Economic Systems 45(2): 100765.

• Mora, Nada. 2014. “Reason for Reserve? Reserve Requirements and Credit.” Journal of Money, Credit and Banking 46(2–3): 469–501. 

• Khneisser, Mona. 2019. “The Marketing of Protest and Antinomies of Collective Organization in Lebanon.” Critical Sociology 45(7–8): 1111–32. 

• Mora, Nada. 2020. “A Primer on the Financial Crisis in Lebanon: A Historical and Cross-Country Perspective.” Available at SSRN 3527443. 

Other Political Economy

• Assouad, Lydia. 2023. “Rethinking the Lebanese Economic Miracle: The Extreme Concentration of Income and Wealth in Lebanon, 2005–2014.” Journal of Development Economics 161: 103003.

• Chaaban, Jad. 2016. “I’ve Got the Power: Mapping Connections between Lebanon’s Banking Sector and the Ruling Class.” In Economic Research Forum.

• Khater, Lea Bou. 2022. The Labour Movement in Lebanon: Power on Hold. Manchester University Press.

• Nahas, Charbel. 2020. An Economy and a State for Lebanon. Riad el-Rayyes Books.

• Nasr, Salim. 1978. “Backdrop to Civil War: The Crisis of Lebanese Capitalism.” MERIP Reports (73): 3–13. 

• Diwan, Ishac, and Jamal Ibrahim Haidar. 2021. “Political Connections Reduce Job Creation: Firm-Level Evidence from Lebanon.” The Journal of Development Studies 57(8): 1373–96. 

• Corstange, Daniel. 2016. “Anti-American Behavior in the Middle East: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Lebanon.” The Journal of Politics 78(1): 311–25. 

Armed Groups

• Smith, Charles D. 2004. Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict. Bedford/St. Martin’s. [Just read chapter 8] 

• Norton, Augustus Richard. 2014. Hezbollah: A Short History - Updated Edition. Princeton University Press.

• Parkinson, Sarah Elizabeth. 2013. “Organizing Rebellion: Rethinking High-Risk Mobilization and Social Networks in War.” American Political Science Review 107(3): 418–32. [see also her longer book on this].

Colonialism and Ottoman era

• Hanssen, Jens. 2005. Fin de Siècle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital. Oxford University Press.

• Makdisi, Ussama. 2000. The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon. University of California Press.

• Makdisi, Ussama. 2017. Artillery of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East. Cornell University Press. 

• Watenpaugh, Keith David. 2015. Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism. Univ of California Press.

• Winter, Stefan. 2010. The Shiites of Lebanon under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1788. Cambridge University Press.

Films [can access most here]. See also Lebanese Independent Film Festival (LIFF) entries.

• Listen (2018)

• Capernaum (2018)

• The Insult (2017)

• Leila and the Wolves (1984) 

• Al-Hayba (2017) [series] 

• Beirut Dreams in Colour (2022)

• Under the Bombs (2007/8)

• West Beirut (1998)

• Children of Shatila (1982)

• Costa Brava, Lebanon (2021)

• Lebanon in a Whirlwind (1975)

• Beirut, My City (1983)

• Suspended Dreams (1992)

• Caramel (2007)

• Where Do We Go Now? (2007) 

• Lebanon, the Land of Honey and Incense (1988) 

• Beirut Diaries: Truth, Lies and Videos (2006)