Traboulsi, Fawwaz. A History of Modern Lebanon.

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Traboulsi, Fawwaz. A History of Modern Lebanon. Ann Arbor, MI: Pluto Press, 2007. 288 pages. Paper $29.95.

Fawwaz Traboulsi writes an impressive account of the history of modern Lebanon over five centuries. It is the only comprehensive history since over forty years. History writing had long drawn upon European government archives when recent primary sources became available, especially the Ottoman archives. Traboulsi fills the gaps when he uses primary and secondary sources that had been often ignored. Three themes governed his political-economic and historical analysis: sectarianism, an outward-looking liberal economic system based on the service sector, the relation of modern Lebanon with its regional setting.

In the preface, Traboulsi wrote; "Politicized religious sects are treated here as historical products, rather than ahistorical essences rooted in religious differences or as mere entities. Sects in Lebanon are a perfect example of the way pre-capitalist formations are recycled to play new roles in a peripheral capitalist economy" (viii). He centers his attention on internal factors that were also ignored by others. Traboulsi realizes that the sizeable Christian population, on the one hand, and the country's long exposure to the West, on the other, are the main two distinctive features that shape modern Lebanon.

Traboulsi begins his analysis with the formation of Ottoman Lebanon in the 16th century and the growth of Beirut as a capital for trade and culture through the 19th century. The Druz dominated the muqat 'ji system. By the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the world market in 1840 the uneven origins of the Lebanese economy transformed into uneven development, and the role of the Maronites expanded. There was a clear inequality in the division of labor and...