BEIRUT: City of Regrets

Reed, Eli

ISBN 10: 0393305074 / ISBN 13: 9780393305074

Published by W W Norton & Co Ltd [1988], New York, London, 1988

About this Item

Binding sound and tight without spine crease. Cover has light wear and a few light creases. Short gift inscription on half-title page. The text pages have light age toning at edges, the plates are as new. ; 128 color plates. ; Photographs; Oblong 8vo 8" to 9" tall; 188 pages.

Seller Inventory # 6585

Bibliographic Details

• Title: BEIRUT: City of Regrets
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Ltd [1988], New York, London
• Publication Date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393305074
• ISBN 13: 9780393305074
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Illustrator: Illustrated by Ajami, Fouad
• Edition: First Paperback Edition; First Printing.
• Condition: Very Good
• Seller catalogs:
  • Middle East
  • Art including photography
  • War
  • History
  • Military

About this title

Synopsis

Photographs show the people of Beirut and everyday life in wartorn city, and are accompanied by a discussion of the history of the region

From Publishers Weekly

With a thorough, moving and remarkably unbiased essay by Ajami ( The Vanished Imam ), director of Middle Eastern studies at the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies, and 128 riveting color photos by Magnum photographer Reed, this book shows how the once "charmed city" on the Mediterranean has become a place of "cruelty and hatred." Ajami writes of the sectsShia and Sunni Moslem, Druze, Maronite Christian and Palestinianwho managed to coexist, however tenuously, in Beirut until 1975, when civil war broke out and "massacre followed massacre." Quoting Lebanese poet Nizzar Qabbani, Ajami concludes, "Nothing remains of old Beirut except the scent of it that blows from old notebooks . . . . " Reed's photos give flesh and blood (literally and figuratively) to Ajami's prose. Guns, bodies and scenes of destruction are interspersed with the depictions of desperate attempts by the populace to maintain their humanity and live normal lives amid the madness. There are images of a baby's christening, a woman having her hair done in an austere beauty salon, and, in one of the most powerful and upsetting photos, a young couple with a pink baby carriage crouch against a wall to avoid sniper fire. The passionate, sorrowful book is both a tribute to the beleaguered, persevering inhabitants of Beirut and to the beautiful, cosmopolitan city that has fallen victim to the political and religious animosities of the Middle East.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.