Thomas L. Friedman, author of From Beirut to Jerusalem, presents in this book a journalist's account of the development of the problems in the Middle East from about 1979 to 1995 when this version of the book was published. Friedman is a journalist serving as the Foreign Affairs columnist for the op-ed page of the New York Times. He has won two Pulitzer Prizes for international reporting, and he spent ten years in the Middle East, which is the experience on which he draws to write this book, most of which is personal observation of events at which he was present or an analysis of information and experience garnered from his time in the Middle East. From 1979 to 1981, Friedman was the Beirut correspondent for United Press International, and in 1982 he became the bureau chief in Beirut for the New York Times. He won his second Pulitzer Prize in 1988 for reporting. He has also received the Overseas press Club Award (1980), the George Polk Award (1982), the Livingstone Award for Young Journalists (1982), the New York Newspaper Guild Page One Award (1984), and the New Israel Fund Award for Outstanding Reporting from Israel (1987). He also received a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on From Beirut to Jerusalem (Friedman 589).
Friedman's methodology in this book is to recount his own experiences from the time he arrived in Beirut until the time of the revision of this book for this particular printing. He is a journalist, and so he interviews people, gathers information from various sources, sifts through that information, and produces a narrative based on his knowledge and experience. His research is for the most part personal in nature, meaning that he has been to these places and interviewed these people himself, or has talked the issues over with other reporters and gathered information from them. He does not do the sort of research that produces a scholarly tome and does not have footnotes or a bibliography. He does offer ...