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Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon (Nation Books) Paperback – October 24, 2002

by Robert Fisk (Author)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 87 ratings
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With the Israeli-Palestinian crisis reaching wartime levels, where is the latest confrontation between these two old foes leading? Robert Fisk's explosive Pity the Nation recounts Sharon and Arafat's first deadly encounter in Lebanon in the early 1980s and explains why the Israel-Palestine relationship seems so intractable. A remarkable combination of war reporting and analysis by an author who has witnessed the carnage of Beirut for twenty-five years, Fisk, the first journalist to whom bin Laden announced his jihad against the U.S., is one of the world's most fearless and honored foreign correspondents. He spares no one in this saga of the civil war and subsequent Israeli invasion: the PLO, whose thuggish behavior alienated most Lebanese; the various Lebanese factions, whose appalling brutality spared no one; the Syrians, who supported first the Christians and then the Muslims in their attempt to control Lebanon; and the Israelis, who tried to install their own puppets and, with their 1982 invasion, committed massive war crimes of their own. It includes a moving finale that recounts the travails of Fisk's friend Terry Anderson who was kidnapped by Hezbollah and spent 2,454 days in captivity. Fully updated to include the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon and Ariel Sharon's electoral victory over Ehud Barak, this edition has sixty pages of new material and a new preface.

"Robert Fisk's enormous book about Lebanon's desperate travails is one of the most distinguished in recent times." -- Edward Said
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  1. Print length
    752 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    October 24, 2002
  4. Dimensions
    5.5 x 1.88 x 8.25 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    1560254424
  6. ISBN-13
    978-1560254423
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"He is a devastating witness to the failure of politics to guard mankind against itself." -- Sunday Times, March 11, 1990

"One is left in awe at [Fisk's] industry, commitment and courage in reporting the ugliest of the world's current conflicts." -- Literary Review, 1990

"Robert Fisk is one of the outstanding reporters of this generation. As a war correspondent he is unrivalled." -- Financial Times, February 24, 1990

About the Author

Robert Fisk is the Middle East Bureau Chief for the Independent (UK) and has reported from Belfast, Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq. He is the world's most-decorated foreign correspondent, having won the British Press Awards' International Journalist of the Year award seven times. The author of two previous books, Pity the Nation and The Great War for Civilisation, Fisk lives in Beirut and Ireland.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bold Type Books; 4th New American ed. edition (October 24, 2002)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 752 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1560254424
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1560254423
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.6 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.88 x 8.25 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 87 ratings

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Robert Fisk

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Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
87 global ratings

Customers say

Customers find the book worth reading, comprehensive, and journalistic. They describe the pacing as graphic but revealing. Readers also mention the book is full of insights about the Middle East in recent history. They describe the account as heroic.

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Value for moneyPacing
4 customers mention "Value for money"4 positive0 negative

Customers find the book worth reading, comprehensive, and heavy. They say it's a journalistic read.

"This is a heavy, journalistic read, but I read it right before traveling to Lebanon...." Read more

"it is one of the most comprehensive book on the lebanese tragedy i've read...." Read more

"Robert Fisk is a superb writer. Anything he writes is worth reading. He is clear, fair, knowledgeable...." Read more

"well worth reading..." Read more

3 customers mention "Pacing"3 positive0 negative

Customers find the pacing of the book revealing, graphic, and full of insights about the Middle East. They also say it's a heroic account of the suffering and tragedy of this small but historically significant country.

"...It is full of insights about the Middle East in recent history and compliments the author's "The Great War for Civilization"." Read more

"This book is a heroic account of the suffering and tragedy of this small but historically significant nation...." Read more

"Very graphic, but revealing read on Lebanon's tragic history. A must read on Lebanon!!!!" Read more

Top reviews from the United States

PDK
5.0 out of 5 stars An Epic Read ...
Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2014
Verified Purchase
This is the book that I've meant to read for years, but have only just got round to. Now I wish I hadn't waited so long.

According to Amazon, 5 stars means you "Loved It". Well, "loved it" is not a phrase you can apply to a book like this. It is a horrific tale. But once you're through with it, you find that you've gained the beginnings of a solid "understanding" as to why the Lebanese tragedy unfolded the way it did.

I will admit, for someone like myself who doesn't possess a very large knowledge base on the subject of Lebanon, Fisk's work was hard to get into. For openers, he doesn't cover his subject chronologically. In fact, he skips around in history quite a bit (for a reason, as he explains in his prologue). And the maps he provides are rudimentary at best. In fact, I eventually purchased a travel map of Lebanon so that I could better follow his reporting. It was pretty confusing at first, sorting through all the actors and the various factions that influenced the country in the 1900's.

But suddenly, after about 4 or 5 chapters, I reached a point where I could not put the book down. I found myself pulled completely into Fisk's world. It is a hair-raising world, indeed. Interviews with Arafat. Interviews with the Gemayals. Interviews with Israeli soldiers. Interviews with Christian and Muslim inhabitants from all walks of life on both sides of the green line in Beirut. But the most striking passages are his on-the-scene accounts of atrocities large and small ... the horrific events that we don't want to know about but that we MUST know about if we are to have any hope at all of not repeating history in future.

Afterwards, wanting more historical background, I found Kamal Salibi's work, "A House of Many Mansions", to be tremendously helpful in sorting out the various factions that influenced the region in the time period Fisk covers.
9 people found this helpful
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Albert Doyle
5.0 out of 5 stars Not an easy read
Reviewed in the United States on January 19, 2007
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As Fisk tells us this book is not an academic history of the wars in Lebanon but rather a personal narrative of a news reporter based on his mountain of notes, a profession in which he is just the best. This leads to some confusion for a reader who has to stay with him as he jumps from place to place, army to army, party to party, and even time to time. It also takes a strong stomach as he forces us to read about the reality of modern "war", the ugly brutality of what modern weapons can do in dismembering pitiful, innocent human beings. Over and over. As he says, "So far as armies and militias go, there are no good guys in Lebanon." While none of them including the PLO come out as heroes the Israelis certainly do not look good, not just in the brutality inflicted on the Lebanese but in their racist arrogance and lies they often told to cover up their actions. For exposing these Fisk was, as usual, subject to attack by the ubiquitous Israeli lobby in the US including the dreary and false charges of "anti-Semitsm". He is one of the few foreign reporters who has called attention to the Israeli practice of falling back on "the Holocaust" or accusations of anti-Semitism when caught out in one of their military outrages.

This book although a difficult read is particularly educational for Americans who may have opinions about Lebanon formed by the usually inadequate US media.

Fisk is British but lives in Lebanon. He was educated in Ireland and has somewhat Irish outlooks which I think give him a certain sympathy for those without power. I note that when on leave he went to the remote west of Ireland rather than the fleshpots of Europe!

Lastly, his bravery in reporting literally under fire is unique as far as I know, except for a few of his other companions such as his friend the kidnapped Terry Anderson and a few others from several nations and the brave United Nations soldiers. His final chapter about the Israeli attack on the UN base at Qana with its Fiji soldiers and many civilians is shocking and a fitting finale to the book.
36 people found this helpful
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A
5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely moving, personal account of the lebanese Civil War
Reviewed in the United States on July 9, 2005
Verified Purchase
Robert Fisk does an amazing job at describing with great details the life of a foreign correspondent in Beirut during the 80s. While early in the book the flurry of details could seem overwhelming, it then appears as essential to try to make a sense of what happened then, and more importantly why. Having witnessed a great deal of horrors Robert Fisk still manages to put things in perspective, including his own understanding of the situation then (such as his not foreseeing the wake of suicide bombings in the early 80s).

The book is all the more exceptional that Fisk makes additional efforts to make sure that whatever bias he may have (as all individual are wont to have) is counter-balanced by getting as much sides of the story as possible and avoiding spin. The essence of journalism one would say but all too forgotten today. His sympathies definitely transcend political or national boundaries to go to the people who are suffering. And in trying to understand the motives behind all the atrocities (which all "sides" committed) he epitomizes the search for a clearer, less angry view of a world that's too complex to grasp.

Indeed a refreshing departure from the usual 15-second-long, "terrorist-this, terrorist-that" sound-bites.
14 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Frank
5.0 out of 5 stars Robert Fisk at this best.
Reviewed in Canada on May 23, 2020
Verified Purchase
Fisk knows his politics. You have to admire a journalist who tells it like it is and who does it while dodging bullets and bombs.
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Chris.G, London
5.0 out of 5 stars A must for this interested in recent Middle East History.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 31, 2014
Verified Purchase
A great book by Robert Fisk giving an unbiased insight into the Lebanese Civil War.

Roberts writing is truly unbiased and tells many of the horrors of the Lebanese Civil War. From the atrocities carried out by Lebanese factions to those carried out under the watchful eye of the Israelis during their '82 invasion of Beirut and the difficult job of UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon.

The book journeys from the British Mandate in Palestine to the Syrian Intervention and subsequent occupation that bought about a relative if not unstable ceasefire via the Palestinian refugee camps to those homes now occupied by modern day Israelis.
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Ferri
5.0 out of 5 stars Easy reading
Reviewed in Germany on October 12, 2009
Verified Purchase
It is difficult if not impossible to judge the media reports on accuracy, unless one has a reliable source to compare them with. I have compared this eyewitness account with the reports I used to hear in the media in those days, and I have decided that this is much more accurate.

Robert Fisk's compelling book gives the reader an incomparable insight into the truth of the good and evil, which has plagued the Middle East causing so much grief to women and children as well as to the fighting men.

One may disagree with some of the points made by the author but one can never call him anti-Semitic, as Arabs and Israelis are both Semites; and in this book everyone's failings are listed.

I for one can't wait for his next book on this subject.
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Areej khaddaj
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in Canada on June 22, 2015
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Good
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john lang
5.0 out of 5 stars history of palistinian `question`
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 18, 2015
Verified Purchase
excellent review of palestinian history
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