{"product_id":"levant-philip-mansel-9780300181715","title":"Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eNot so long ago, in certain cities on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean, Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived and flourished side by side. What can the histories of these cities tell us?\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eLevant\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003cp\u003eDistinguished 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMansel 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Philip Mansel\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 030018171X\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780300181715\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Yale University Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 05\/29\/2012\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 480\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.55lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.26h x 6.18w x 1.03d","brand":"Philip Mansel","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":48621664207103,"sku":"9780300181715","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/levant-philip-mansel-9780300181715","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}