Lebanon has fallen prey to the rapacious appetites of most of the world’s great powers – France, Ancient Egypt, Rome, Assyria, Al- exander the Great, the Arabs, Crusaders, Persians, Mamlukes and Ottoman Turks. Vestiges of all these transient civilisations are still there: Phoenician tombs and Roman temples, Gothic castles, venerable mosques and churches all jostling for attention. The Lebanese themselves bear genetic witness to this history: dozens of ethnic and religious groups coexist uneasily, hemmed in between mountains and sea, stubbornly defending their rites and traditions in a mosaic- like society where politics informs religion and vice versa. Violence, beauty, poetry, struggle, humour, an occasional example of inspiring inter-cultural harmony – and bigotry – all are reflected through these writers’ eyes.

Including: Colin Thubron, P.J. O’Rourke, William Dalrymple, Mark Twain, Gustave Flaubert, T.E. Lawrence, Mahmoud Darwish, Sir James Frazer, Ibn Battuta, Herodotus, Homer.