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Charles Glass

Tribes With Flags: A Dangerous Passage Through the Chaos of the Middle East Hardcover – April 1, 1990

by Charles Glass (Author)

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This illuminating portrait of the people of the Levant by former ABC News Chief Middle East Correspondent Charles Glass provides much-needed insight into a land so frequently in the news. Tribes With Flags is a chronicle of Glass' journey from the southern Turkish coast to Lebanon, and includes the 62 days he was held captive by pro-Iranian terrorists in Beirut.

Print length

510 pages
Language:

English
Publisher

Atlantic Monthly Pr
Publication date

April 1, 1990
ISBN-10

0871132672
ISBN-13

978-0871132673
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In March of 1987, Glass, who speaks some Arabic and had covered the Middle East as a TV correspondent, began what he calls a literary and spiritual ramble through the countries of the Levant. His itinerary was a leisurely, spontaneous affair: visiting historical sites, chatting with people from all walks of life, comparing his impressions with those of earlier travelers such as Richard Burton, Benjamin Disraeli, Mark Twain. Curious about the various "tribes" who live in Turkey, Syria and Lebanon, Glass found attitudes to be remarkably divergent among people about their tormented world. His nonjudgemental tolerance here extends even to the Hizballah gunmen who brought his journey to an abrupt halt in Beirut and held him hostage (he had planned to continue on to Israel and Jordan). Glass's account of two months' captivity and his escape bring to an exciting conclusion this engrossing, informative, unusual travel book. Author tour.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

As a veteran correspondent (chief of ABC News' Middle East bureau), Glass is no stranger to the complexities of the maelstrom known as the Middle East. Four months after resigning from ABC, he was kidnapped and held hostage in Beirut, until his escape 62 days later. Interestingly, the retelling of Glass's days as hostage fills only a relatively few pages; instead, this is a literate, erudite, and leisurely stroll through the Middle East Glass always wanted to report on but couldn't due to the limitations of the 30-second sound bite. This is much like Thomas Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem ( LJ 7/89; one of LJ' s "Best Books of 1989," 1/90, p. 52.) in its blending of personal anecdote with contemporary landscapes, but it has a more historical tone. Highly recommended.
- David P. Snider, Casa Grande P. L., Ariz.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

Publisher : Atlantic Monthly Pr; First Printing edition (April 1, 1990)
Language: : English
Hardcover : 510 pages
ISBN-10 : 0871132672
ISBN-13 : 978-0871132673
Item Weight : 1.8 pounds

Best Sellers Rank: #3,493,707 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,014 in General Middle East Travel Guides
- #5,350 in African Politics
- #5,892 in Middle Eastern Politics

Customer Reviews:
9 ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

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M. P. Murphy

Great read!

Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2015

Verified Purchase

I found this book alternately hard-to-put-down and slow, depending on what part of the story I was in. The characters are real people from all over Middle East, and they are fascinating and often funny and tragic in turns, but the love that Glass has for them and the respect he shows them in describing them and recounting conversations lends credence to the strange events that unfold in the narrative.

One person found this helpful

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Eyad Sarraj

Excellent

Reviewed in the United States on May 11, 2013

Verified Purchase

I follow the writings of the author and I read his book tribs with flags. I find the present book a perfect follow up with such distinguished style and rich knowledge . Thank you

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Michael Mardini

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on August 21, 2014

Verified Purchase

Great read if you are interested in contemporary Levantine history.

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CRF Smith, Guernsey

Hurrah for the return of a great book

Reviewed in the United States on October 27, 2012

I recently discovered that my original 1990 Secker & Warburg copy of this engaging and ultimately thrilling piece of VS Naipaulish reportage by the American-born broadcaster and writer Charles Glass is missing from my shelves. So hurrah for Harper Press who have had the sense to reissue it as an eBook.

In the spring of 1987 Glass, who had been based in Beirut as ABC's Middle East correspondent, wanted to get away from hourly deadlines. He persuaded his New York editors to grant him leave of absence so that he could write a book about the people who, either as victims or villains, usually provided the human fodder for his news bulletins.

Starting in the Mediterranean town of Iskenderun in eastern Turkey he intended, using whatever public transport was available, to make a land journey across modern day Syria, Lebanon and Israel until he reached the Jordanian port of Aqaba on the Red Sea. It was a route designed to take him through most of what the old Ottoman Empire regarded as its Arabic speaking Greater Syria. He never made it. Syria itself was solid as a rock. In Aleppo Muslims and Christians of all persuasions lived at peace under the tyrant Hafez el-Assad. Dissidents were murdered. Lebanon was in its twelfth year of civil war and, despite recent Syrian army intervention, still gave anarchy a bad name.

When he reached Beirut Glass was kidnapped and ended up chained to a radiator in one of those fero-concrete jungles in the city's southern suburbs where Shi'ite militias still fly their flags. His capricious captors were alternatively cruel and kind: treats one day, denied water and dehydrating the next. They called him Dallas, after the TV soap, and delivered a video recording of him to the local Reuters bureau reading a prepared statement confessing (in the most unlikely southern accent a Californian could contrive) that he was CIA. But from the beginning Glass had been determined to escape and get back to his wife and young children and he never stopped trying. Eventually, on his 63rd day, with considerable cleverness and daring he succeeded. To reveal how he did so would spoil it. Suffice to say that at this point his story, with its brutal honesty about his own fears and the awakening of his dormant Catholicism, is at its most compelling.

Glass still reports from his beloved Levant, mainly for the New York Review of Books.This eBook edition benefits from a new author's introduction drawing on his recent visits to a Syria that has now replaced Lebanon as the regional battle ground. The book's main title comes from Tahseen Bashir, perhaps one of Egypt's less predictable diplomats. 'Egypt is the only nation state in the Arab world,' he once said. 'All the rest are tribes with flags.'

[[ASIN:0753827050 England's Last War Against France: Fighting Vichy 1940-42]

`

One person found this helpful

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Lebanon Lite 1987

Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2011

By Charles Glass. "Tribes With Flags: A Dangerous Passage Through the Chaos of the Middle East" (1990) a hardback published by Atlantic Monthly Press, and similarly titled "Tribes with Flags: A Journey Curtailed" (1992) a paperback version published by Picador Books; both 510 pages. In early 1987 the author intended on traveling throughout the Middle East, but half way through his travels he was "kidnapped by pro-Iranian terrorists in a Shiite Muslim suburb of Beirut and held for sixty-two days" before allegedly escaping while his guards were allegedly asleep. This book isn't an exhaustive analysis of the civil war between various religious groups in Lebanon, instead it is packed full of anecdotes that the author experienced during his only 4-month-long trip (before he was kidnapped), whereby he met many different and divergent political and religious figures - but with a strong emphasis on encounters with the local `fella' in learning of their regional clothing, food and customs. If you like travelogues, you may like this book. Mr. Daniel Pipes (founder of Middle East Forum) was much dissatisfied with this book, based upon his 24 April 1990 review in the Washington Times. In one of his more charitable paragraphs, Pipes opined: "The book consists mostly of reports on conversations, interspersed with revealing, if random, historical facts and quotes from texts, very much in the style of V. S. Naipaul. Glass is a perfectly competent writer and one capable of insights and even the occasional turn of phrase, but he lacks Naipaul's depth or wit. The occasional nuggets are nearly obscured by a thick dust of commonplace detail." A bit stale-dated now.

3 people found this helpful

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DaveMarchese@WriteMe.com

If you love historical yet flowing prose, this is for you

Reviewed in the United States on October 28, 1997

Wonderful look at an area which is often overlooked for it's beauty and rich culture because of all the constant turmoil of the region. Glass grew up with some of the language and culture. This is obvious as he explores in-depth the areas he travels to and attempts to reproduce the travels of those before him. I thought the book was a good mix of history and culture intertwined into his daily travel and musings. The book is somewhat of a cathartic reminiscence as he relates his humbling time of kidnapping. But as such the recounting helps to bring stark reality back to the nature of that region and force us to consider the reasons 'why' pain and suffering are necessary in such a mythical and adventurous place. I've recommended this book to two friends who are news correspondents and love to travel. Thumbs up!

16 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

CRF Smith

Hurah for the return of a great read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 26, 2012

Verified Purchase

I recently discovered that my original 1990 Secker & Warburg copy of this engaging and ultimately thrilling piece of VS Naipaulish reportage by the American-born broadcaster and writer Charles Glass is missing from my shelves. So hurrah for Harper Press who have had the sense to reissue it as an eBook.

In the spring of 1987 Glass, who had been based in Beirut as ABC's Middle East correspondent, wanted to get away from hourly deadlines. He persuaded his New York editors to grant him leave of absence so that he could write a book about the people who, either as victims or villains, usually provided the human fodder for his news bulletins.

Starting in the Mediterranean town of Iskenderun in eastern Turkey he intended, using whatever public transport was available, to make a land journey across modern day Syria, Lebanon and Israel until he reached the Jordanian port of Aqaba on the Red Sea. It was a route designed to take him through most of what the old Ottoman Empire regarded as its Arabic speaking Greater Syria. He never made it. Syria itself was solid as a rock. In Aleppo Muslims and Christians of all persuasions lived at peace under the tyrant Hafez el-Assad. Dissidents were murdered. Lebanon was in its twelfth year of civil war and, despite recent Syrian army intervention, still gave anarchy a bad name.

When he reached Beirut Glass was kidnapped and ended up chained to a radiator in one of the fero-concrete jungles in the city's southern suburbs where Shi'ite militias still fly their flags. His capricious captors were alternatively cruel and kind: treats one day, denied water and dehydrating the next. They called him Dallas, after the TV soap, and delivered a video recording of him to the local Reuters bureau reading a prepared statement confessing (in the most unlikely southern accent a Californian could contrive) that he was CIA. But from the beginning Glass had been determined to escape and get back to his wife and young children and he never stopped trying. Eventually, on his 63rd day, with considerable cleverness and daring he succeeded. To reveal how he did so would spoil it. Suffice to say that at this point his story, with its brutal honesty about his own fears and the awakening of his dormant Catholicism, is at its most compelling.

Glass still reports from his beloved Levant, mainly for the New York Review of Books.This eBook edition benefits from a new author's introduction drawing on his recent visits to a Syria that has now replaced Lebanon as the regional battle ground. The book's main title comes from Tahseen Bashir, perhaps one of Egypt's less predictable diplomats. 'Egypt is the only nation state in the Arab world,' he once said. 'All the rest are tribes with flags.'

[[ASIN:0753827050 England's Last War Against France: Fighting Vichy 1940-42]

`

3 people found this helpful

K Nash

Balanced and informative

Reviewed in Canada on August 16, 2019

Verified Purchase

Interesting historical read

See all reviews

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Tribes With Flags: A Dangerous Passage Through the Chaos of the Middle East Hardcover – April 1, 1990

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