1920
A01=Engin Akarli
Author_Engin Akarli
Category=NHG
civil war
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
european intervention
french mandate
government
history
lebanese experience
lebanese history
lebanese nationality
lebanese politics
lebanon
local forces
middle east
middle eastern history
modernization
negotiations
peace studies
political science
politics
religion
religious groups
secular democracy
self rule
shifting alliances
sociopolitical changes
statecraft
turbulent areas
turkey
turkish history
Product details
- ISBN 9780520080140
- Weight: 499g
- Publication Date: 16 Jul 1993
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Long notorious as one of the most turbulent areas of the world, Lebanon nevertheless experienced an interlude of peace between its civil war of 1860 and the beginning of the French Mandate in 1920. Engin Akarli examines the sociopolitical changes resulting from the negotiations and shifting alliances characteristic of these crucial years. Using previously unexamined documents in Ottoman archives, Akarli challenges the prevailing view that attributes modernization in government to Western initiative while blaming stagnation on reactionary local forces. Instead, he argues, indigenous Lebanese experience in self-rule as well as reconciliation among different religious groups after 1860 laid the foundation for secular democracy. European intervention in Lebanese politics, however, hampered efforts to develop a correspondingly secular notion of Lebanese nationality. As ethnic and religious strife increases throughout much of eastern Europe and the Middle East, the Lebanese example has obvious relevance for our own time.
Engin Deniz Akarli is Professor of History at Brown University.
