Products tagged with 'history'

​​Eighteen-year-old Gladys Mouro left her home in New Hampshire for the American University of Beirut, where she soon became a first-rate registered nurse. But in her pursuit of adventure, Lebanon gave her more than she had ever bargained for. Less than a year after her arrival, Lebanon's civil conflict erupted and swept her into fifteen years of dealing with the tragic human consequences of war in an understaffed and unprotected hospital. This book is a personal record of living and working in a war-torn land; it is also a story of the noble survival of an institution – the American University of Beirut Medical Center and the courageous people who, against all odds, kept it alive and functioning throughout the Lebanese Civil War.

​​​This is the story of the Lewis Affair at the American University of Beirut (then the Syrian Protestant College). When Professor Edwin Lewis mentioned Charles Darwin in the course of a commencement address, there were drastic ramifications, including faculty resignations, student suspensions, the first student protest in the Arab World, a subsequent drop in student enrollment, and the imposition of a Declaration of Principles on AUB faculty members. It represents a momentous event in the history of the American University of Beirut, and its reverberations were felt in intellectual circles throughout the Arab world. A foreword by former AUB president John Waterbury outlines how the issues underlying the Lewis Affair, including the controversy generated by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, the struggle between conservative and liberal elements of academia, and the question of academic freedom, remain pertinent to this day.

​In May 1873, Mrs. Abby Bliss and her four children left Beirut and returned to Amherst, Massachusetts for reasons of health and the children's education. This book contains letters written to them between 1873 and 1874 by Abby's husband, Daniel Bliss, the first president of the Syrian Protestant College, later the American University of Beirut. Written in diary form just seven years after the founding of the College, the letters reveal the excitement of the almost completed construction of College Hall, the frustrations and achievements of their fourteen months of separation, and fascinating information about daily life and the politics of the time. They show Daniel Bliss as a loving family man missing his wife and children while enthusiastically dedicated to the task of building the College.

​AUB's 125th anniversary celebrations in 1992 coincided with the beginnings of Lebanon's return to peace after sixteen years of civil war, throughout which AUB continued to function. This book is a special anniversary tribute to the founders of the university, originally the Syrian Protestant College, who laid the foundations on which the college could grow and develop into one of the leading institutions of higher education in the Middle East. The book documents seven of the original faculty: Daniel Bliss, the first president; David Stuart Dodge; Edwin R. Lewis; Harvey Porter; George E. Post; Cornelius Van Dyck; and John Wortabet. Sections in English and Arabic include speeches, official papers, letters, and articles – some contemporary, others more recent – that demonstrate the values and principles these founding fathers sought to put into practice.

Lead, Innovate, Serve: A Visual History of the American University of Beirut’s First One Hundred and Fifty Years represents a collaborative expression of love for AUB in celebration of its 150th anniversary. This elegant collection of images effectively walks the reader, year by year, through a selection of key elements and moments in the University’s history. The photographs are organized chronologically into five sections entitled “Founding 1862–1901,” “Taking Root 1902–1948,” “Academic Renaissance 1949–1970,” “Turmoil and Resilience 1971–1996,” and “A New Millennium 1997–2016.” The sections are accompanied by short essays relating to each period of the University’s history and by profiles of AUB’s presidents and numerous history makers who have contributed to the impact that the American University of Beirut has had both in Lebanon and beyond. We believe that Lead, Innovate, Serve will be treasured by all who have entered the gates of the University. ​ Proceeds from sales of the book go to the 150 for 150 Scholarship Fund​.

​​​This is a collection of papers presented at a 2008 conference sponsored by the American University of Beirut's Sheikh Zayid bin Sultan Chair of Islamic Studies of the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies and the Margaret Weyerhaeuser Jewett Chair of Arabic of the Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Languages. The volume includes sixteen articles by scholars from the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Lebanon, and is divided into two parts: the first dealing with classical and premodern poetry, and the second with modern and contemporary poetry, with three articles focusing on the work of the poet Mahmoud Darwish. It serves to better illuminate some aspects of the relationship between the fields of poetry and history, and represents a significant contribution to the field of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies.