"Written by one of Britain's most distinguished journalists, this remarkable book is an epic account of the Lebanon conflict by an author who has personally witnessed the carnage of Beirut for twenty-six years. It is a story of western betrayal and the loss of American power and prestige in the Middle East. This book tells, too, in frightening detail, the story of the Middle East's first suicide bombers and their first devastating strike at Americans.

Through a combination of war reporting and political analysis. Robert Fisk describes Lebanon's ferocious civil war and subsequent Israeli invasions, the Lebanese militias whose appalling brutality spared no one; the US Marines who found themselves trapped in the horror of Lebanon where many of them were to meet a terrible fate; and the Israelis, who tried to install their own puppet rulers, and with their 1982 invasion provoked war crimes of their own.

Fully updated to include the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon and Ariel Sharon's electoral victory, this American edition has sixty pages of new material and a revised preface."--BOOK JACKET.