The Origins of Lebanese History

Kamal Salibi

In "The Origins of Lebanese History," veteran historian Kamal Salibi examines the various local, regional, and external factors that led to the emergence of the Lebanese entity within its current borders, thereby shifting the historical image of Lebanon from the realm of unverified myth to that of scientific truth based on objective historical facts. In his tracing of these factors, the author addresses the conditions of Mount Lebanon and its surroundings during the "Middle Ages," from the advent of Islam until the fall of the Mamluk state in Bilad al-Sham and Egypt following the Ottoman conquest in the early sixteenth century. These six centuries are considered "the most obscure periods in Lebanese history, due to the scarcity of verifiable information available, which led imaginative individuals to weave stories around them that bear no relation to reality."