A Beirut Anthology

Beirut has seen many armies and empires come and go, but the legacy of this long history is not so much in surviving monuments as in the quintessential Levantine spirit of the people. Beirut was the point of entry to the Levant for many Europeans and Americans undertaking a Grand Tour or a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and visitors recorded their impressions of this effervescent port city where East rubs against West. A Beirut Anthology gathers the choicest of these from writers as diverse as Alphonse de Lamartine and Mark Twain.