From Beirut to Jerusalem: One Man’s Middle Eastern Odyssey

Best intellectual book on the Middle East that exists. Friedman is an experienced, thoughtful genius. A must read.

Brilliant book for those of you that what a personal account of the Middle East struggles. The book provides some facinating insight into the cultures and political characters of this sometimes tense environment. The book is a must for anyone wanting to improve their understanding of the Middle East.

The writing wasn't terrible, but it certainly wasn't good either. Much of the book read as if it was filler and stories he heard from someone else. The author's account of his time in Beirut was not informative and rather bland. I have read other accounts that really go in depth into either the political, military or personal experiences of those on the ground, but this book did not add anything to what's been written. His analysis of the Beirut conflicts left much to be desired.I remember a part of the book where Friedman writes about his time in the Commodore Hotel and how this hotel was the place to be for any journalist in Beirut, and then reading Robert Fisk's Pity the Nation where he talks about all the hack journalists hiding out in the Commodore writing their stories from second hand accounts instead of going out and reporting the story with their own accounts. I don't know if Fisk was right, but I thought his book was much better than Friedman's.I did find his writing on Israel to be informative (still bland though). His analysis of the psychology of the Israeli people I found to be highly insightful, and it gave me a perspective which I had never seen before. The only way to understand the Israeli people is to try and understand how the Holocaust and being surrounded by hostile people has affected their national psyche. The Israeli perspective was the best thing I took away from this book, but not even this was able to redeem the work for me.One of the reasons I like reading reporter's books is that they are usually well written, entertaining and written with a passion or flare that the academics usually lack. This book had none of that. I felt bored and found myself having to concentrate pretty hard to stay in touch with what I was reading. I would have been fine with the shoddy writing had the analysis or the history been better but it just wasn't. There are just many books out there that treat the subject with much more competency.If you're looking for a good book to learn more about this topic, keep looking.

I enjoyed reading this book and felt it was overall a fair and accurate view of the situation in the region.I do nonetheless disagree with Friedman's "analysis" and political solution at the end, as I felt it was more one sided. Does not really detract from the relevance of his reporting skills though.

Not in the "must read " class, but a good informative personal account of Thomas Freidman, the New York Times middle east journalist. The book contains his observances of the factional fighting that took place in Beirut and the larger Lebanon, Israel conflict in the 1980s. The book has interesting observances of these complicated situations. This is a good book for the 21st century where it appears Lebanon is again descending into chaos, and Israel has once again tried the tactic of invading southern Lebanon. Freidman does a good job making a chaotic situation interesting while providing new insights.