LEADER 03093nam 2200553 a 450 001 9910968002003321 005 20250806201831.0 010 $a1-283-15065-4 010 $a9786613150653 010 $a0-300-17622-8 035 $a(CKB)2670000000095637 035 $a(StDuBDS)AH24486395 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000523861 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11376342 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000523861 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10543428 035 $a(PQKB)11092117 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3420703 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3420703 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10480873 035 $a(CaONFJC)MIL315065 035 $a(OCoLC)923596165 035 $a(BIP)46013711 035 $a(BIP)32472841 035 $a(EXLCZ)992670000000095637 100 $a20110104h20112010 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur||||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aLevant $esplendour and catastrophe on the mediterranean /$fPhilip Mansel 210 $aNew Haven, Conn. $cYale University Press$d2011, c2010 215 $a1 online resource (480 p.) 300 $aFirst published in Great Britain in 2010 by John Murray (Publishers). 311 08$a0-300-17264-8 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 330 $a"Levant" is a book of cities. It describes three former centers of great wealth, pleasure, and freedom--Smyrna, Alexandria, and Beirut--cities of the Levant region along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. In these key ports at the crossroads of East and West, against all expectations, cosmopolitanism and nationalism flourished simultaneously. People freely switched identities and languages, released from the prisons of religion and nationality. Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived and worshipped as neighbors. Distinguished historian Philip Mansel is the first to recount the colorful, contradictory histories of Smyrna, Alexandria, and Beirut in the modern age. He begins in the early days of the French alliance with the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century and continues through the cities' mid-twentieth-century fates: Smyrna burned; Alexandria Egyptianized; Beirut lacerated by civil war. Mansel looks back to discern what these remarkable Levantine cities were like, how they differed from other cities, why they shone forth as cultural beacons. He also embarks on a quest: to discover whether, as often claimed, these cities were truly cosmopolitan, possessing the elixir of coexistence between Muslims, Christians, and Jews for which the world yearns. Or, below the glittering surface, were they volcanoes waiting to erupt, as the catastrophes of the twentieth century suggest? In the pages of the past, Mansel finds important messages for the fractured world of today. 607 $aMiddle East$xHistory 607 $aMiddle East$xCivilization 676 $a909/.09822 700 $aMansel$b Philip$f1951-$0542809 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910968002003321 996 $aLevant$94411819 997 $aUNINA