The Struggle Over Lebanon

I would give the first half (formation of the state of Lebanon till the early 70s) 5/5
And I would give the second half (the civil war from 1975 till 1986) 2/5

The first half is really informative, really puts into perspective the coming of the war, it was not out of the blue but a war already discussed by israel since the 50s, by the western powers in this context, and bound to happen the way the west created the contradictory state that is Lebanon.

However, the second half is just really not accurate. I will give the author the benefit of the doubt as she had published the book in 1986, so with no real in hindsight analysis. She had no idea Syria will never normalize relations, and will protect the Resistance so efficiently it kept growing until liberation (in the book she keeps eluding to this Syria-israel peace deal), that the Muslim Resistance will lead the liberation of Lebanon and form a Resistance axis (and not the PLO) and that Arafat at the first chance he gets, will sign a peace deal with Israel and sell the cause.

A main problem is the whitewashing of both Jumblatt's and Arafat's History, who were both using the Palestinian cause to gain power, and vilifying whomever stood against them (another thing time would've proven that those who stood against him, were the ones still fighting israel -unlike Fatah- obviously not speaking of Kataeb) and another problem is vilifying any religious movement, however revolutionary in the Lebanese context it were (Mousa Sadr was bad, Hezb is anti-semitic and not anti-zionist, the irani revolution brought fundamentalism to the area not wahhabism etc...), and then she offensively only spoke of the PSP as left and completely ignored the Lebanese Communist Party, the PFLP, the SSNP and other more genuine leftist and resistance movements. She even skipped over some ethnic cleansing instances, cause it wouldn't fit her narrative, cause “christians bad”. I will not list all my problems with the book, but these were my main issues.

So in summary first half is great, second half could only be used as a chronological reference point but very simplistic and at times erroneous analysis of those years.