Every essay we've published, ordered by the editor — for return rather than for scrolling. Filter by topic, sort by length, find the piece you half-remember.
Downtown Beirut was not simply rebuilt badly after the war. It was rebuilt in a way that made later crises harder to absorb: vacancy became rational, repair became optional, ownership became distant, and the symbolic center of the capital lost the ordinary citizens who make cities heal.
Read essay ->Lebanon can defend its land without pretending Hezbollah is innocent, and reject Hezbollah's permanent exception without pretending its rivals have built a real state.
A generator in a basement explains the country: every missing public service becomes a private sovereignty, every private sovereignty defends the failure that made it necessary, and every household becomes its own small state.
The Abu Ali Itani generator incident showed Lebanon's political system in miniature: every missing public service becomes someone's private kingdom, and when the state finally arrives, it is read as faction before law.
