Reviews for The Literature of the Kymry; Being a Critical Essay on the History of the Language and Liter...

The average rating for The Literature of the Kymry; Being a Critical Essay on the History of the Language and Liter... based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-01-07 00:00:00 Joyce Hoinski Makdisi is a gifted writer. He argues that the advent of sectarianism in modern Lebanon was a byproduct of modernity itself. Modernity was not the occasion for the eruption of a preexistent sectarianism, in other words. Makdisi never really defines "modernity," but I suppose the term stands in for the formation of the nation-state, nationalism, popular politics & issues of political representation - in short, the sweeping and profound geopolitical and domestic developments that followed in the wake of the French Revolution and permeated the globe. Makdisi credits romantic European travellers' tales about Lebanon and its history, combined with Ottoman reformism, with implanting sect-consciousness in the minds of the Lebanese. The thesis is compelling but not completely convincing, in my opinion. I feel that what should have been the most crucial part of Makdisi's argument was actually the most tenuous, namely I did not feel he cogently demonstrated from the primary sources that the Lebanese internalized either mythical notions of their own country and sect from European faux-anthropology or "Tanzimat" reformism from the Ottomans, during the critical years between 1840-1860. I realize Makdisi says they did, and he can point to some good sources in support of this premise, such as one Bishop Murad's "Notice Historique", but the quantity of source material testifying to this intellectual sea-change seem somewhat lacking. Perhaps this is due to the largely illiterate nature of nineteenth-century Lebanese society; written sources are probably pretty paltry. This possibly accounts for why the Lebanese come across as rather passive in this text, not in the terms of their actions (for they fought a brutal civil war, which Makdisi describes), but in terms of the silence of their intellectual voice.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-12-20 00:00:00 Douglas Begland كتاب جيد يشرح اسباب الفتنة الطائفية التي حدثت في ١٨٦٠ في جبل لبنان ويوضح كيف لعبت القوى الغربية والإصلاحات العثمانية (التنظيمات) وقبلها الغزو المصري بقيادة إبراهيم باشا ابن محمد علي باشا حاكم مصر دور في التمهيد لما حدث لاحقا... الكتاب يشرح دون تطويل أو تعقيد جذور ما حدث ويوضح كيف كان للإرساليات التبشرية وتدخل القوى الغربية ووقوف فرنسا بجانب الموارنة ووقوف الانجليز بجانب الدروز دور رئيسي في حدوث شقاق بين الجانبين وكيف تحولت مطالب شعبية إلى ازمة طائفية..