Contents; Acknowledgments; Introduction; Chapter 01. Arabism and Its Rivals; Chapter 02. Swarming Memories, Clashing Identities: The Case for Lebanon; Chapter 03. Lebanon's Myths and Legends; Chapter 04. Saïd Akl: The Architect of the Spirit of the Nation; Chapter 05. Particularism as Template; Chapter 06. Linguistic Lebanonism; Chapter07. Toward a Lebanese Alphabet, Toward a New Middle East; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index; About the Author
Summary
Since the West's very early flirtations with the modern Near East, and especially in the past 100 years of East-West relations, there has been considerable difficulty in understanding and defining the Middle East, the Arab world, pan-Arabism, Arab nationalism, and Middle Eastern identities in general. The Western impulse of conflating national identity with language, state, and ethnicity--often subsuming Arabic language into Arab ethnicity--has contributed to this misunderstanding and misreading of the region. For, while the Middle East can be accurately referred to by way of the generic "Arab w
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-283) and index
