David C. Gordon – författare

In their struggle for self-determination the newly independent countries of the Third World are reestablishing links with their precolonial pasts and determining their present identities and future possibilities. To demonstrate this, David Gordon brings together, interprets, and synthesizes the thought of contemporary Arab historiographers. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

In their struggle for self-determination the newly independent countries of the Third World are reestablishing links with their precolonial pasts and determining their present identities and future possibilities. To demonstrate this, David Gordon brings together, interprets, and synthesizes the thought of contemporary Arab historiographers. Originally published in 1971. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Torn by civil war, its major city in shambles, and occupied by foreign peacekeeping forces as well as foreign armies, the Republic of Lebanon in the 1980s was struggling to regroup, rebuild and resolve its problems under new leadership. In this analytical survey, first published in 1983, Professor Gordon addresses such questions as why the republic – rooted in the distant past – succumbed to such disintegration. Lebanon’s multi-ethnic character and the Palestinian presence are considered fully, and Lebanon is examined in the international context, inevitably with particular reference to the creation of Israel and its consequences. The country is viewed both in its own right and also as a small skiff on a very rough regional and international sea.

Torn by civil war, its major city in shambles, and occupied by foreign peacekeeping forces as well as foreign armies, the Republic of Lebanon in the 1980s was struggling to regroup, rebuild and resolve its problems under new leadership. In this analytical survey, first published in 1983, Professor Gordon addresses such questions as why the republic – rooted in the distant past – succumbed to such disintegration. Lebanon’s multi-ethnic character and the Palestinian presence are considered fully, and Lebanon is examined in the international context, inevitably with particular reference to the creation of Israel and its consequences. The country is viewed both in its own right and also as a small skiff on a very rough regional and international sea.

Even up to the eve of the civil war, some observers saw the Lebanese system as essentially stable, and exhibiting some of the virtues of liberty and pluralism which had been commended by the French traveller de Volney a century before. But for others its structure was so seriously flawed as to be resolved only by revolution. The civil war resulted ultimately from a conglomeration of interdependent factors – the religious conflict of Christian and Shi’a Muslim, the social divisions exemplified in the ‘Belt of Misery’ around Beirut, and the ethnic frictions between the Arab host culture and the Occidentalised Maronites. This book, first published in 1980, is a lively and incisive study of one of the most ravaged countries of this generation.

Even up to the eve of the civil war, some observers saw the Lebanese system as essentially stable, and exhibiting some of the virtues of liberty and pluralism which had been commended by the French traveller de Volney a century before. But for others its structure was so seriously flawed as to be resolved only by revolution. The civil war resulted ultimately from a conglomeration of interdependent factors – the religious conflict of Christian and Shi’a Muslim, the social divisions exemplified in the ‘Belt of Misery’ around Beirut, and the ethnic frictions between the Arab host culture and the Occidentalised Maronites. This book, first published in 1980, is a lively and incisive study of one of the most ravaged countries of this generation.