Lebanon History

The Ottoman Empire has long been depicted as the Islamic-Asian antithesis of the Christian-European West. But the reality was starkly different: the Ottomans' multiethnic, multilingual, and multireligious domain reached deep into Europe's heart. In their breadth and versatility, the Ottoman rulers saw themselves as the new Romans.

On October 23, 1983, a truck bomb destroyed the US Marines barracks in Beirut. Two hundred and forty-one Americans were killed in the worst terrorist attack our nation would suffer until 9/11. We're still feeling the repercussions today. When Reagan Sent In the Marines tells why the Marines were there, how their mission became confused and compromised, and how President Ronald Reagan used another misguided military venture to distract America from the attack and his many mistakes leading up to it.

The politics and recent history of the Middle East can seem baffling to outsiders. Nowhere was that more evident than during the Lebanon War that raged in 1982. Even contemporary reporting often made fundamental mistakes, and there was little general understanding of what was happening and why. This conflict involved a bewildering number of groups and influences from different parts of the world. The precipitating event was the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador in London, carried out by members of a Palestinian terrorist group.

1983: the United States Marine Corps experiences its greatest single-day loss of life since the Battle of Iwo Jima, when a truck packed with explosives crashes into their headquarters and barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. This horrifying terrorist attack, which killed 241 servicemen, continues to influence US foreign policy and haunts the Marine Corps to this day. Now, the full story is revealed as never before by Jack Carr and historian and Pulitzer Prize finalist James M. Scott.

Before September 11, 2001, one terrorist group had killed more Americans than any other: Hezbollah, the “Party of God.” Today it remains potentially more dangerous than even al Qaeda. Yet little has been known about its inner workings, past successes, and future plans–until now.

On August 4, 2020, a huge explosion in the heart of Beirut killed hundreds of people – it is the apocalypse of a sequence of events that have led to Lebanon’s unprecedented collapse. Journalist Dalal Mawad has interviewed tens of Lebanese and foreign women - victims of the explosion, and those stuck in Lebanon - and weaves an extraordinary story of survival, corruption and impunity.

The United Nations is one of the most famous bodies in the world, and its predecessor, the League of Nations, might be equally notorious. In fact, President Woodrow Wilson’s pet project was controversial from nearly the minute it was conceived. At the end of World War I, Wilson's pleas at the Paris Peace Conference relied on his Fourteen Points, which included the establishment of a League of Nations, but while his points were mostly popular amongst Americans and Europeans alike, leaders at the Peace Conference largely discarded them and favored different approaches.

Gamal Abdel Nasser, the larger-than-life Egyptian president who ruled for eighteen years from the coup d'etat he led in 1952, is best known for wresting the Suez Canal from the British and French empires and befriending such iconic revolutionaries as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Yet there is a darker side to Nasser's regime. He was a brutal authoritarian, whose legacy lies at the heart of the violent and repressive order that still prevails throughout the Arab world today. In We Are Your Soldiers, Alex Rowell focuses on seven countries to reassess Nasser's impact in the Arab sphere.

Um país pequeno e distante abriga um povo longe de ser desconhecido pelos brasileiros: os libaneses imigraram em peso para cá e trouxeram seus costumes e sua cultura. Este audiolivro, escrito pelo historiador descendente de libaneses Murilo Meihy, mostra características, discute estereótipos e traz esse povo alegre e sofrido ainda mais perto dos brasileiros.

Vecino limítrofe con Israel, este país hasta los años 70 era el centro financiero de Oriente Próximo, condición que fue rota por el enfrentamiento civil entre libaneses, la Guerra del Líbano, el ejército de Israel y el Hezbollah, sucesos que destruyeron un equilibrio político ejemplar. Las luchas internas y los conflictos con Israel - que invadió el país en 1982 - aún perduran.