Lebanon gained its formal political independence in 1943. During the dozen years that followed, women and men across class, sectarian, geographic, and ideological divides built, challenged, and reformed the institutional arrangements that would shape the country. With this book, Ziad Abu-Rish traces shifting patterns of alliances and conflict that shaped the material and representational production of the Lebanese nation-state. Exploring labor regimes, women's suffrage, the provision of electricity in Beirut, public education, and the armed forces-and the meetings, lectures, pamphlets, delegations, and protests they produced-Abu-Rish demonstrates how elite and popular groups mobilized normative ideas about independence and state power.
The State of Lebanon offers a new social and institutional history of post-colonial Lebanon. Abu-Rish challenges common narratives of an absent, weak, or failed state. Instead, state institutional arrangements emerge as objects and subjects of political mobilization by politicians, bureaucrats, party activists, students, and workers. Rather than read history backward from the present, he approaches the past on its own terms. In so doing, Abu-Rish offers significant insights into politics, social life, and the state in Lebanon-grounded in the early post-independence period yet critical to how we understand Lebanon today.
| ISBN: | 9781503645295 |
| Publication date: | 17th March 2026 |
| Author: | Ziad AbuRish |
| Publisher: | Stanford University Press |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 382 pages |
| Series: | Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures |
| Genres: |
Middle Eastern history Social and cultural history Political economy |
Lebanon gained its formal political independence in 1943. During the dozen years that followed, women and men across class, sectarian, geographic, and ideological divides built, challenged, and reformed the institutional arrangements that would shape the country. With this book, Ziad Abu-Rish traces shifting patterns of alliances and conflict that shaped the material and representational production of the Lebanese nation-state. Exploring labor regimes, women's suffrage, the provision of electricity in Beirut, public education, and the armed forces-and the meetings, lectures, pamphlets, delegations, and protests they produced-Abu-Rish demonstrates how elite and popular groups mobilized normative ideas about independence and state power.
The State of Lebanon offers a new social and institutional history of post-colonial Lebanon. Abu-Rish challenges common narratives of an absent, weak, or failed state. Instead, state institutional arrangements emerge as objects and subjects of political mobilization by politicians, bureaucrats, party activists, students, and workers. Rather than read history backward from the present, he approaches the past on its own terms. In so doing, Abu-Rish offers significant insights into politics, social life, and the state in Lebanon-grounded in the early post-independence period yet critical to how we understand Lebanon today.
The State of Lebanon features in the following genres: Middle Eastern history, Social and cultural history, Political economy
The State of Lebanon is available in Paperback, Hardback
The State of Lebanon was written by Ziad AbuRish and published by Stanford University Press
The State of Lebanon has 382 pages
Yes it is part of Stanford Studies in Middle Eastern and Islamic Societies and Cultures series