Beware of Small States

About “Beware of Small States”

In this history of Lebanon, David Hirst examines the country's development from the end of Ottoman rule to the Hizbullah and Hamas wars, focusing on the interplay between Lebanon's internal dynamics and its geopolitical environment. The book covers the transition from Ottoman Turkish rule to European colonial domination, the loss of Palestine to the settler-state of Israel, the rise of pan-Arab nationalism, the struggle for independence, revolutionary seizures of power, and the emergence of fundamentalist Islam following the failure of nationalism, which led to the rise of Hizbullah and Hamas.