DS85.K36

- Includes bibliographical references and index - Includes some black-and-white illustrations, 2 maps and some tables

1- Maps, Illustrations and Tables 9 2- Acknowledgments 11 3- A Note on Transliteration and Abbreviations 14 4- Introduction 15 5- An Introduction to Co-habitation 19 6- What Is Consensus? 20 7- The Role of Memory 22 8- The Role of Myth 23 9- The Roots of the Crisis 23 10- Social Structure: Community and Class 24 11- The Role of History 29 12- Sources of Information 34 13- Chapter Outline 41 1. Community Relations in Lebanese History: The Long-term Internal Perspective 50 The Imarah 57 The Mutassarifiyyah 75 The Early 1900s 81 2. External Perspectives in the Historical Setting 95 French and Maronite Policies Converge 107 Sunni Hostility towards Maronite 'Myths' 109 3. The Creation of Independent Lebanon, 1920-43 121 A Constitution 130 4. The Crisis Develops, 1943-58 151 The Pact Collapses: Three Reasons Why 153 The Eisenhower Doctrine 163 Reconnecting to Foreign Powers 174 Changes in Thinking 180 5. The Sunni Community in 1958 199 Egypt's Intervention 215 6. The Maronite Community in 1958 244 The Political Parties 248 Chamoun's Rhetoric 252 The Patriarch Flexes His Muscles 264 Reasons for the Crisis 271 Conclusion 293 Bibliography 303 Index 316

Insightful and extensively researched, Lebanon in the 1950s explores the differing mythologies of the Maronite, Druze and Sunni communities that led to a brief but brutal clash in Lebanon in 1958. This polemical and thought-provoking work offers a fresh perspective on a period in Lebanese history often seen as the product of international friction between pan-Arab nationalism and the growing threat to Western hegemony during the Cold War. Kanaan argues that it was the centuries-old cultural, political and religious tensions in the region that led to civil conflict. Each community constructed a 'history' of Lebanon to justify their own ends, and in so doing helped to precipitate a national crisis. Lebanon in the 1950s is a fascinating overview of the interpretations surrounding the 'historical' evolution of the various communities that helped shaped Lebanon's vulnerable and volatile infrastructure, and what the US Department of Defence referred to as 'like war but not war' - a clash that was to have repercussions throughout the region for decades to follow.