Focusing on Ottoman Lebanon, Ussama Makdisi shows how sectarianism was a manifestation of modernity that transcended the physical boundaries of a particular country. His study challenges those who have viewed sectarian violence as an Islamic response to westernization or simply as a product of' social and economic inequities among religious groups. The religious violence of the nineteenth century, which culminated in sectarian mobilizations and massacres in 1860, was a complex, multilayered, subaltern expression of modernization, he says, not a primordial reaction to it.Makdisi argues that sectarianism represented a deliberate mobilization of religious identities for political and social purposes. The Ottoman reform movement launched in 1839 and the growing European presence in the Middle East contributed to the disintegration of the traditional Lebanese social order based on a hierarchy that bridged religious differences. Makdisi highlights how European colonialism and Orientalism, with their emphasis on Christian salvation and Islamic despotism, and Ottoman and local nationalisms each created and used narratives of sectarianism as foils to their own visions of modernity and to their own projects of colonial, imperial, and national development. Makdisi's book is important to our understanding of Lebanese society today, but it also makes a significant contribution to the discussion of the importance of religious discourse in the formation and dissolution of social and national identities in the modern world.
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The intimate history of Jerusalem through the lives of the men and women who ruled it and created it.
“At the core of the book lies a terrifying analogy: Israel as Pakistan, a country whose government has empowered a lawless, fanatical religious movement now subverting the very state that empowered it. Is the analogy apt today? No, but Gorenberg makes a frighteningly convincing case that it might be soon.” (Peter Beinart, Newsweek )
“Until I read The Unmaking of Israel, I didn’t think it could be possible to feel more despairing, and then more terribly hopeful, about Israel, a place that I began at last, under the spell of Gershom Gorenberg’s lucid and dispassionate yet intensely personal writing, to understand.” (Michael Chabon )
“In a more forward-looking country, one less devoted to hounding its critics out of existence, legislators would roam the halls of the Knesset carrying well-thumbed copies of Gershom Gorenberg’s The Unmaking of Israel.” (The National )
“A powerful and persuasive new book. . . . A finely documented piece of reporting.” (Joshua Hammer, The Washington Monthly )
“Eloquent. . . . An indispensable, closely argued, and conditionally apocalyptic book. . . . Gorenberg outlines many reasonable steps Israel should take to disentangle religion from the state.” (Jeffrey Goldberg, The New York Times Book Review )
“Gorenberg provides a deft but penetrating and highly nuanced account of the recent history and current politics of Israel. . . . He issues a heartfelt and heart-rending plea for the repair of the Jewish democracy.” (The Jewish Journal )
“An important book. . . . Essential reading for those in the U.S. who view Israel in simple terms as ‘the only democracy’ in the Middle East. Gorenberg has provided a roadmap for a better future. One hopes that this deeply personal critique will receive the consideration it deserves.” (The Washington Independent Review of Books )
“Clear and well argued.” (The Palestine Chronicle )
“Gorenberg presents the definitive case for viewing the occupation as more of a threat to Israel than an asset. . . . Required reading for anyone about to embark on a trip to Israel.” (Haaretz )
