USSAMA MAKDISI, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Ottoman Lebanon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Pp. 259. $22.00

In: International journal of Middle East studies: IJMES, Band 34, Heft 1, S. 156-158

Abstract

In The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Ottoman Lebanon, Ussama Makdisi focuses on sectarianism as the defining experience in modern Mount
Lebanon—indeed, as the core of Lebanese modernity itself. This work is a meticulous
deconstruction of sectarianism as a discourse spawned by a particular historic
conjecture—Ottoman reform in the age of European domination—in and around the
tiny peripheral society of 19th-century Mount Lebanon. It is also an impassioned insistence not
only on the historic but also the moral urgency of recognizing the contingency of, and the human
agency in, the emergence of sectarianism and an invitation for hope in a Lebanese future that
might yet dare to embrace an alternative modernity. Makdisi's book is not only illuminated
by the scholar's insight; it is also animated by empathy for his subject matter and a talent
that brings local society and its mountainous vistas vividly to the mind's eye.