Beirut

Owing perhaps to its tumultuous history, vibrant cultures, and the diversity of its populations, Beirut has been the center of a rich reflection on historical and contemporary urbanization. Less than two centuries ago, Beirut was a small provincial town of less than 5,000 inhabitants. The city’s ascendency to regional center and capital city is tied to the successive expansions of its port, but also to its ability to act as refuge for multiple displaced populations as of 1840 and well after its establishment as Lebanon’s capital in the 1920s. The city grew, absorbing flows of refugees, harnessing skills, creativity, and capital flows, and eventually playing a pivotal regional role by the time of Lebanon’s independence. This history makes it difficult to disentangle the literature about Beirut from a wider national history or to speak of the practices of its dwellers separately from the rest of the country, as evidenced in this article. The last five decades of Beirut’s history have been unsettling. From a dazzling city attracting tourists, businesses, and film crews, Beirut rapidly pivoted after 1975 to become an emblem of civil strife, violence, and disarray. These two faces of Beirut often blend into each other, as is made clear by scholarly works that reflect the tensions between, on the one hand, a liberal, cosmopolitan, and at times glamorous city unique in the region for the individual liberties it affords, and, on the other, civil strife, divisions, and fear. This bibliography seeks to capture the critical trends that has animated the academic urban literature about Beirut over the past five decades. It includes foundational references as well as recent studies that grapple with the city’s ongoing transformations. The selection is limited to texts that include a spatial dimension, finding in this territorial anchorage an adequate frame through which to articulate a coherent body of scholarly works discussing the city. Within this selection, there are eleven sections, each of which is organized in subsections. Most sections include older and more recent pieces, and each reflects the priorities, debates, and tensions that animate the entries under its title, allowing readers to gather a sense of the main discussions that shape each of the selected titles. Whenever possible, English original texts or translated versions are listed, but some of the most cited French texts when they are needed to complement a discussion are included. It was unfortunately impossible to cover Arabic references, despite their relevance, particularly in historical sections and in discussions of arts and culture. Readers are advised to look for texts on specific entries transversely since many topics overlap and could not be contained under one heading.