This would have made a great long-form magazine article, but there is not enough substance for a 300-page book.
Cambanis certainly is a great reporter. He makes his interlocutors, the places he visits, the events he witnesses truly come alive. But when it comes to interpreting and analysing the facts he observes, he becomes vague, repetitive, contradictory. He makes lots of sweeping assertions on complex social issues - often plausible, but sometimes contradictory - but doesn't reveal their analytical underpinnings. Rather than coherent lines of reasoning, these analyse often resemble politicical speeches, plausible, eloquent, but essentially a very well-worded stream-of-consciousness. I think that the author would by hard-pressed to formulate the 3-5 principal arguments he wants to make about Hizbollah.
The accounts of the author's experiences would still be immensely enjoyable, if it weren't for the fact that these "analytical" forays often take the form of extended tangents interrupting the otherwise very readable reporting.
The worst part of all is the terrible editing. I have counted almost a dozen repetitions, sometimes of sentences, in one case of an entire paragraph (not literal but almost). Many of the "analytical" tangents should have been cut, streamlined and merged.
Contrary to other critical reviewers, I don't think Cambanis is biased or unobjective.
For a good history and analysis of Hizbollah, try Richard Augustus Norton.
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