The Origins of the Lebanese National Idea: 1840-1920
Carol Hakim
Abstract
This book presents a new and original narrative of the origins and development of the Lebanese national idea. It challenges nationalist accounts that trace the origins of Lebanese nationalism back to a distant and legendary past and then trace its evolution in a linear, gradual manner. Instead, this book argues that while some core ideas and basic historical myths around which Lebanese nationalism eventually crystallized appeared by the mid-nineteenth century, a coherent and popular nationalist ideology and movement only emerged with the establishment of the Lebanese state in 1920. The book re ... More
This book presents a new and original narrative of the origins and development of the Lebanese national idea. It challenges nationalist accounts that trace the origins of Lebanese nationalism back to a distant and legendary past and then trace its evolution in a linear, gradual manner. Instead, this book argues that while some core ideas and basic historical myths around which Lebanese nationalism eventually crystallized appeared by the mid-nineteenth century, a coherent and popular nationalist ideology and movement only emerged with the establishment of the Lebanese state in 1920. The book reconstructs the complex process that led to the appearance of different and fluid national ideals among members of clerical and secular Lebanese elite by 1840, and it follows their fluctuations and variations up until the establishment of a Lebanese state. The book will be of interest to historians and scholars of the Middle East and nationalism, as well as to a wider public concerned with the history of the region.
Keywords:
Lebanon history,
Syria history,
Middle East history general,
nationalism general,
nationalism Middle East
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2013 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780520273412 |
| Published to California Scholarship Online: September 2013 |
DOI:10.1525/california/9780520273412.001.0001 |
