"If you're only going to read one book on the Middle East, this is it."---Seymour M. Hersh
One of the most thought-provoking books ever written about the Middle East, From Beirut to Jerusalem remains vital to our understanding of this complex and volatile region of the world. Three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Thomas L. Friedman drew upon his ten years of experience reporting from Lebanon and Israel to write this now-classic work of journalism. In a new afterword, he updates his journey with a fresh discussion of the Arab Awakenings and how they are transforming the area, and a new look at relations between Israelis and Palestinians, and Israelis and Israelis. Rich with anecdote, history, analysis, and autobiography, From Beirut to Jerusalem will continue to shape how we see the Middle East for many years to come.
“The most intelligent and comprehensive account one is likely to read.” ―The New York Times Book Review
“A book that must be read by all who are concerned about the present and future of a part of our world to which Western civilization has always been, and will continue to be, vitally connected.” ―The Washington Post Book World
“A sparkling intellectual guidebook…An engrossing journey not to be missed.” ―The Wall Street Journal
“A complex, illuminating vision written with a novelist's eye for the telling detail and a reporter's knack for the revealing quote.” ―San Francisco Chronicle
“Perhaps no other book written for a popular audience has so successfully explained the unexplainable….This book is an annotated road map to the past, and a brilliant crystal ball for the future.” ―St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Fascinating...Friedman has mastered his subject.” ―Time

This Book Highlights Israel’s Northern Borders—Crucial to the Nation’s Survival—Where Israel’s Soul Thrives Amid Persistent Danger, Isolation, and Economic Tribulation.
By combining intimate profiles of residents in multiple border communities with thorough research, you will meet daring people who settled the region, overcame its hardships, and remain determined to live normal lives in a challenging land.
Written by a member of the International Advisory Board for Alma, a Northern Israel Research and Education Center, this fascinating narrative reveals the century-plus story of the return of a Jewish presence to Israel’s northern borders where a Jewish nation once flourished.
“Living in Heaven, Coping with Hell is a meticulously researched, deeply reported and compellingly written account of the unique challenges and remarkable resilience of the Jewish communities along Israel’s often precarious northern borders.” -David Leach, author of Chasing Utopia: The Future of the Kibbutz in a Divided Israel.
Those intrepid souls that settled the land and hold it today will stir you, and humor you, as you encounter ordinary men and women that accomplished extraordinary things. You will learn of:
Idealistic and courageous Jews fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Zionists building a nation.
The Kibbutz–its rise, fall, and struggle to rise again.
Hezbollah, terrorism, and Katyushas.
Why Israelis remain determined to live along Israel’s northern borders.
Inspiring stories of people who now populate the region.
Communities along the border you will want to explore when you visit Israel.

In the mid-nineteenth century, Jerusalem was rich with urban texts inscribed in marble, gold, and cloth, investing holy sites with divine meaning. Ottoman modernization and British colonial rule transformed the city; new texts became a key means to organize society and subjectivity. Stone inscriptions, pilgrims' graffiti, and sacred banners gave way to street markers, shop signs, identity papers, and visiting cards that each sought to define and categorize urban space and people.
A City in Fragments tells the modern history of a city overwhelmed by its religious and symbolic significance. Yair Wallach walked the streets of Jerusalem to consider the graffiti, logos, inscriptions, official signs, and ephemera that transformed the city over the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As these urban texts became a tool in the service of capitalism, nationalism, and colonialism, the affinities of Arabic and Hebrew were forgotten and these sister-languages found themselves locked in a bitter war. Looking at the writing of—and literally on—Jerusalem, Wallach offers a creative and expansive history of the city, a fresh take on modern urban texts, and a new reading of the Israel/Palestine conflict through its material culture.