Customer Reviews

The Covenant: Love & Death in Beirut

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I started reading this book, I thought it was just another fairy tale written by a reporter who was seeking fame and fortune. I was wrong. the events in this book are acurate, and the story in all is very intense. I congradulate miss Neman for her honesty and courage. I would love to meet and share some stories with her one day since I grew up in the Covenant's home town... No matter what was said about Shiek Basshir, and no matter what he had done, HE WAS TRULY THE ONLY HOPE LEBANON HAD..

Imagine that a foreigner to Lebanon knows more about it than the Lebanese themselves. It's a great history book, and one would have to read it to really know what was happening in Lebanon.

A superb piece of work. Only someone with "inside" information could have written a book with so much details, showing unfortunately dirty (local, regional and international) politics. Politics that killed, probably what was known to be as one of the best places to live in. It is sad and ironic to see world powers leave such a country to disintegrate and die leaving it at the mercy of its meddling and envious neighbours.

If you have ever lived in the Middle East and still need a clear understanding of the situation in Lebanon, read this book! While there is a personal "romance" side to the book, it gives great detail and explanation to the confusing state of affairs in Lebanon - having lived there for 17 years during the time frame of the events in this book, I found myself understanding the turmoil, seeing things in a clearer picture, and longing to return to this once Paris of the Middle East. Barbara made a promise to tell the truth about Bashir Gemayel, about his short presidency, and most of all, about his realistic plans for a stabilized Lebanese government. She captured his vision and expresses it well - his ideas of defeating the old system and bringing a democratic system of government into existance that combined Muslim and Christian interests and refocused them into a united Lebanese idealism.

This book is simply one few books that actually captures the war from the free side of Beirut. Unlike Robert Fisk's book, that is completely biased depiction of the war spinning everything on the anti-palestinian movement of the time, and to be more specific the christians of the free areas. This book shows what the Lebanese had to go through to maintain their survival in Lebanon and not leave it to be annexed by the Palestinians who somehow fought a battle in the wrong direction. Instead of fighting Israel they ended up fighting the Lebanese. Western reporters including fisk were obviously fooled by everything was going on. Fisk's book was accurate in depicting the details of the war, but was not accurate at all in depicting the political and nationalistic side of the war.

Barbara Newman reveals a whole new side of the war fought by the Lebanese. How they chose to fight each other at times instead of the real enemy. How Bachir Gemayel was betrayed by his own men, his own rabid dogs to be more specific. It is a great book that gives one of the greatest political leaders Lebanon was to see , a humanist side, one of the sides that few people knew, and certainly not the evil savage picture depicted by Al-Jazeer's account of the war, by Fisk and many western reporters who barely mingled with the Free Lebanese politicians.

First of all, i beg your pardon for my bad english.
I bought this book here in January 2 and today i finally say that i liked it very much!
It is accurate, have all the ingredients of a good book for me, and it displays a balanced portrait of a complex man that, with all his fragilities, was very important to Lebanon recent history.
Just my opinion, because i came from a country with a less turmoiled history but with very deep problems, Portugal.

A superb piece of work. Only someone with "inside" information could have written a book with so much details, showing unfortunately dirty (local, regional and international) politics. Politics that killed, probably what was known to be as one of the best places to live in. It is sad and ironic to see world powers leave such a country to disintegrate and die leaving it at the mercy of its meddling and envious neighbours.

In a time where people were afraid to tell the truth, Barbara came and did it. She was not afraid of telling the truth. I read the book in couple of hours, I could not stop reading. I was glued to the book maybe because I am Lebanese and familiar with the situation, or maybe I just wanted to know what really happened in my country. I recommend every lebanese to read this book, and seek the truth from it. 15 years later, other players started coming out clean and repeating the same thing that Barbara said in her book. It is amazing that you can never hide the truth forever.

A fascinating, page-turner, written by one of America's foremost American journalists, who broke the Karen Silkwood story, it's an intimate look about how love and commitment changed the journalist's life after the assassination of her friend Lebanon President-elect Bashir Gemayel. The book tells how she went to the most dangerous place in the world, the Bekaa Valley in Labanon, to look for his killer among the terrorists training there.

This book is rather a well-written "fiction". It describes the involvement of Barbara Newman in Middle Eastern politics when she was doing a segment for 20/20 in the early 1980's. The book describes her experiences during the Beirut civil war. Her love affair with the commander-in-chief of the Lebanese christian forces, Beshir Gemayel, ended with the latter's assassination three weeks after being elected Lebanese president