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A World I Loved: The Story of an Arab Woman
 
 
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A World I Loved: The Story of an Arab Woman [Paperback]

Wadad Makdisi Cortas (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)

Price: $14.95 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
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Book Description

May 12, 2009
"This is my story, the story of an Arab woman. It is the story of a lost world. It begins in 1917, in Lebanon, when I was seven years old.” So opens this haunting memoir by Wadad Makdisi Cortas, who eloquently describes her personal experience of the events that have fractured the Middle East over the past century.

Through Cortas’ eyes we experience life in Lebanon under the oppressive French mandate, and her desire to forge an Arab identity based on religious tolerance. We learn of her dedication to the education of women, and the difficulties that she overcomes to become the principal of a school in Lebanon. And in final, heartbreaking detail, we watch as her world becomes rent by the “Palestine question,” Western interference, and civil war.

The World I Loved is both an elegy on Lebanon and her people, and the unforgettable story of one woman’s journey from hope to sorrow as she bears painful witness to the undoing of her beloved country by sectarian and religious division.


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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Wadad Makdisi Cortas was the principal of the Ahliah National School for Girls in Lebanon for twenty-six years, and the mother of four children, including Mariam Said, wife of Edward Said. Wadad Makdisi Cortas died in 1979.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 256 pages
  • Publisher: Nation Books (May 12, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1568584296
  • ISBN-13: 978-1568584294
  • Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #882,610 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

7 Reviews
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4 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (7 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Journey to the world she loved, May 30, 2009
This review is from: A World I Loved: The Story of an Arab Woman (Paperback)
This is a beautifully written, engrossing story of a remarkable
woman and her account of life in Lebanon and the region, spanning
the early 20th century to the late 1970's. She takes the reader
into a different world and I thoroughly enjoyed the journey!
The story of her extraordinary life is woven into the narrative
of the history and politics of the era, together with vivid
descriptions of daily and family life, the landscape, people and
friends - prominent and otherwise.
For those seeking to better know and understand this region, its
history and its people - which are so little known and understood
in the U.S. - or for those seeking an inspiring story of a
principled Arab woman dedicated to education and service - or both -
this is a must-read!
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh Perspective Of The Modern World, June 19, 2009
By 
Louis A. LeBlanc (Donaldsonville, LA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: A World I Loved: The Story of an Arab Woman (Paperback)
After reading "A Peace To End All Peace", I was looking to read more about the lingering effects from World War One but not from Western eyes. This was an excellent book!
This book is written from an Arabic point of view. I gained an appreciation for Arab peoples and their view on life and the world. It's an embarrassment to come from Louisiana , home of the Congressman who proudly stated that we should arrest any one wearing a diaper on their head wrapped with a fan belt.
If you want to gain a broader understanding about how we got to where we are today, read this book. News media in the west is pitiful. An informed public needs to have a solid understanding of what happened in the past before listening to media in the U.S.A. And this book gives a good balanced view from the Eastern perspective.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A Wonerful, Illuminating Book, June 24, 2009
This review is from: A World I Loved: The Story of an Arab Woman (Paperback)
I loved this book, which is both the personal memoir of a fascinating broad-minded accomplished woman educator and a political history of the forces riling her enlightened world. Her empathy for Jewish refugees and their children whom she educates in her cosmpolitan school is balanced against her knowledge of the plight of the Palestinian children, separated from family and land, whom she also educates and cares for. She worked for and longed for tolerance, acceptance, and the integration into a cosmopolitan life of people of all faiths and creeds; she watched the dream recede until it ended in Civil War in Lebanon, the expulsion of the Palestinians and a militarized Israeli state. Through it all, she found sustenance in music, in the accomplishments of her students, and of her own four children, in the stories of the people who lived in her mountain village, and in the beauty of the land. The world she loved and brings to life is a world all people of good will might love. With a foreword by her daughter and an afterword by her granddaughter, the reader also follows three generations of Arab women and comes to admire each.
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Inside This Book (learn more)
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Wadad Makdisi Cortas, United States, Holy Land, United Nations, World War, Uncle Dumit, American University, Middle East, Ahliah School, Old City, Holy City, Saudi Arabia, British Mandate, Arab East, Arab Revolt, French Mandate, May God, King Faisal, Arab League, Balfour Declaration, Jordan River, Abu Rayya, Jamal Pacha, Prince Faisal, Hebrew University
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
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