Beirut - City of Regrets

Reed took the 128 color pictures and Ajami wrote the 47 pages of text in this vivid survey of Beirut as it exists today. As ever, Ajami writes with a rare lyrical skill (especially notable since his English is a learned language). Having grown up in Beirut, he presents his overview of the city's history with a bitter fondness. Not surprisingly, Ajami is best at evoking the ironies and foibles of Beirut's ruin. «By the early 1980s, in the city that had parodied Paris there was now a parody of Iran's theocratic revolution; parody had replaced parody.» «No one could really 'win' in Beirut. In the mid-1970s, the combatants fought over beachfront hotels, over once-proud places. A decade later, they were fighting over shells of gutted buildings.» (Abschrift aus Daniel Pipes Middle East Forum)