Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East - Softcover

In this magisterial history of Lebanon, from the end of Ottoman rule to the Hezbollah and Hamas wars of today, acclaimed and fiercely independent Middle East journalist and historian David Hirst charts the interplay between a uniquely complex country and the broader struggles of the modern Middle East. Lebanon is the battleground on which the region's greater states pursue their strategic, political, and ideological conflicts--conflicts that sometimes escalate into full-scale proxy wars. Hirst warns that only serious diplomatic action from the Obama administration can prevent the next such action from engulfing the entire region.

David Hirst was for many years the Middle East correspondent of the Guardian. His seminal book on the Arab-Israeli conflict, The Gun and the Olive Branch, has been in print for thirty years.