A history of the Druzes /

Except for an introductory chapter on the origins and early history of the Druze faith and a brief concluding chapter on the present circumstances of the Druzes, Firro (Univ. of Haifa) confines his attention to the 19th and the first half of the 20th centuries. He minutely examines the political history of this ethnoreligious community during the late Ottoman and the Mandatory periods in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. Firro recounts the decline of the Druzes in Lebanon, their migration toward Jabal ad-Duruz, and the development of the resettled community in Syria between the Maronite-Druze conflict of 1860 and the outbreak of WW I. The author explores the ways in which Druze factionalism entailed in the political quarrels among leading Druze families was exploited by the Ottomans and by the increasingly intrusive British and French. Several precise maps pinpoint the demographic shifts of the Druze populations. Other important themes embedded in this very detailed study are the role of the Druzes in Arab nationalist movements and the Zionist encouragement of Druze particularism to ensure their neutrality in the struggle between Jews and Arabs for Palestine. Although this is a significant contribution to the growing but still limited list of works on the Druzes, Robert Brenton Betts's The Druze (CH, Apr'89) remains a more appropriate introduction for undergraduates. Graduate; faculty. L. M. Lewis; Eastern Kentucky University