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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book has been a long time in the making, its completion continually delayed by one episode or another of the endless saga in Lebanon and the surrounding region. Along the way, I have benefited from the support and friendship of many people, too many to be fully acknowledged here. I owe a special debt to Professors Albert Hourani and Kamal Salibi. Their encouragement and guidance was fundamental to my engagement with this project, which started as a doctoral dissertation. Their kindness, generosity, and friendship have remained a continual source of inspiration, and I deeply regret that they are no longer here to see the completion of this book. A similar debt of gratitude is owed to Professor Roger Owen, who has been a source of support since my days in graduate school. In addition, throughout my stay in Oxford, the Centre for Lebanese Studies offered me a home away from home, and its director, Nadim Shehadi, provided invaluable support in academic matters, to say nothing of his guidance in all manner of diversions and escapes from my academic work.

The dissertation would have remained forever a solitary manuscript on the shelves of the main library in Oxford had not many friends and colleagues urged me to publish it. I am particularly grateful to Thomas Philipp, Elizabeth Picard, Eugene Rogan, Akram Khater, Jo Bahout, and Hazem Saghieh for their unfailing confidence, and most of all to James Gelvin and Jens Hanssen, who have never despaired against all odds of seeing the book in print one day.

I have benefited throughout my research from the kind and generous assistance of members of the staff at the Jafet Library at the American University of Beirut, the Bibliothèque Orientale at the Saint-Joseph University, the Public Record Office, the British Library, the Quai d'Orsay, and the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Others have provided invaluable assistance in the preparation of the manuscript; I would like to mention here Debby Callaghan, who initiated me to the basic skills of professional editing, and Chris Newey, who helped with the translation of French quotations.

Colleagues at the Department of History at the University of Minnesota have offered me a warm and welcoming academic home. Their encouragement and support sustained my determination to bring this book to completion. In particular, I acknowledge the kind and patient support of my departmental chairs, Gary Cohen and Eric Weitz, and the gracious, generous, and jovial friendship of Giancarlo Casale and MJ Maynes, who helped in more ways than one.

The University of Minnesota generously provided support for the preparation of the manuscript in the form of a McKnight summer research fellowship and single-semester leave. In addition, the Institute for the Transregional Study of the Contemporary Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia at Princeton University and its director, Bernard Haykel, offered me a fellowship and a supportive environment that allowed me to put the final touches to the manuscript.

The publication of this book would not have been accomplished without the support of all the staff at the University of California Press and the confidence and patience of Lynne Withey and Niels Hooper. Members of my extended family have supported my endeavor throughout the years in more ways than I can mention. Most of all, friends and many others in Beirut, too numerous to be mentioned by name, have taught me more than I can ever recount here. This book is dedicated to them.