Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth-Century Beirut

During the nineteenth century, Beirut was transformed from a provincial town of 6,000 to a political and cultural center of 120,000, becoming the leading seaport of the eastern Mediterranean. This study examines the migration that lay behind much of this growth why the migrants came, what economic changes resulted, and particularly how social relations among the citys religious communities were transformed. The author shows how Beirut grew from a community where Muslims and Christians lived side by side in harmony to a city where new sectarian tensions reflected fundamental changes in the socioeconomic and political balance, changes that shaped the social relations of modern Lebanon.