A few weeks ago, when Lebanon was still big news, I gave a talk at the International Peace Institute in New York. They have posted a podcast and transcript of the remarks, moderated by Warren Hoge and punctuated witha very lively question-and-answer question, with some smart pushback from audience members who thought I overstate Hezbollah’s ideological motives and understate the extent of the party’s Lebanonization.
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“A valuable account. Cambanis is one of those rare foreign correspondents more interested in the impact of the carnage on human beings than in military maneuvers or bang-bang.” —The New York Times Book Review
“An indispensable guide to understanding the region’s most formidable extra-state actor. ... In prose that is often eloquent yet earthy, indicative of scholarly erudition as well as a storyteller’s flair for capturing the complexities of human psychology, Cambanis describes the seemingly contradictory impulses he discovers.” —The Christian Science Monitor
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“Hezbollah is a formidable presence that cannot be ignored, and Cambanis’s book, a well-balanced blend of journalism, history and geopolitical primer, is a significant aid to understanding it.” —Kirkus Reviews