Thomas L. Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem

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 fr

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aponry, in countries like Iraq and Iran. Friedman provides a sketch of the history of tensions in the Middle East and refers back to their roots in the Middle Ages and to the various authoritarian dynasties that have maintained these tensions through the centuries. It is with World War I that the modern state structure in the Middle East began, and it is with World War I and its aftermath that the tensions around Palestine and in Beirut begin in earnest. Friedman notes how the boundaries of the Arab states were imposed artificially from above and how vested interests soon took hold to make these boundaries work. Since that time, the forces that have warred have included those tending toward modernization against those fighting to retain traditions, and Friedman finds that these forces in particular have come to be of vital importance in modern Arab states, producing violence on both sides in our time, with fundamentalist groups using violence to bring attention to their point of view, while governments with a stake in staving off retrogressive elements using violence to stop such resistance. Friedman notes how the evolution of these new states has produced a certain legitimacy that may in time allow leaders to forge true soci

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