In The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Ottoman Lebanon, Ussama Makdisi focuses on sectarianism as the defining experience in modern MountLebanon—indeed, as the core of Lebanese modernity itself. This work is a meticulousdeconstruction of sectarianism as a discourse spawned by a particular historicconjecture—Ottoman reform in the age of European domination—in and around thetiny peripheral society of 19th-century Mount Lebanon. It is also an impassioned insistence notonly on the historic but also the moral urgency of recognizing the contingency of, and the humanagency in, the emergence of sectarianism and an invitation for hope in a Lebanese future thatmight yet dare to embrace an alternative modernity. Makdisi's book is not only illuminatedby the scholar's insight; it is also animated by empathy for his subject matter and a talentthat brings local society and its mountainous vistas vividly to the mind's eye.