The Tragedy of Lebanon is a reissue of Jonathan Randal's acclaimed 1983 study of the rightwing Christian militias in Lebanon that in 1975 plunged the country into a decades-long cycle of war and civil conflict. For this 2012 reissue of the book, Randal added a piercing new Preface reflecting on the meaning of those events, both then and today. As the Senior Foreign Correspondent of the Washington Post, Randal covered Lebanon intensively from 1974 through 1983, having already reported from Vietnam and several other war zones. The Tragedy of Lebanon shows his powers of observation, astute analysis, and storytelling at their very best.