A World I Loved: The Story of an Arab Woman

"This is my story, the story of an Arab woman. It is the story of a lost world. It begins in 1917, in Lebanon, when I was seven years old.” So opens this haunting memoir by Wadad Makdisi Cortas, who eloquently describes her personal experience of the events that have fractured the Middle East over the past century.

Through Cortas’ eyes we experience life in Lebanon under the oppressive French mandate, and her desire to forge an Arab identity based on religious tolerance. We learn of her dedication to the education of women, and the difficulties that she overcomes to become the principal of a school in Lebanon. And in final, heartbreaking detail, we watch as her world becomes rent by the “Palestine question,” Western interference, and civil war.

The World I Loved is both an elegy on Lebanon and her people, and the unforgettable story of one woman’s journey from hope to sorrow as she bears painful witness to the undoing of her beloved country by sectarian and religious division.

Customer Reviews:

Journey to the world she loved

By Martha Dewell "Lady Adventurer" - May 30, 2009

This is a beautifully written, engrossing story of a remarkable
woman and her account of life in Lebanon and the region, spanning
the early 20th century to the late 1970's. She takes the reader
into a different world and I thoroughly enjoyed the journey!
The story of her extraordinary life is woven into the narrative
of the history and politics of the era, together with vivid
descriptions of daily and family life, the landscape, people and
friends - prominent and otherwise.
For those seeking to better know and understand this region, its
history and its people - which are so little known and understood
in the U.S. - or for those seeking an inspiring story of a
principled Arab woman dedicated to education and service - or both -
this is a must-read!

Fresh Perspective Of The Modern World

By Louis A. LeBlanc - June 19, 2009

After reading "A Peace To End All Peace", I was looking to read more about the lingering effects from World War One but not from Western eyes. This was an excellent book!
This book is written from an Arabic point of view. I gained an appreciation for Arab peoples and their view on life and the world. It's an embarrassment to come from Louisiana , home of the Congressman who proudly stated that we should arrest any one wearing a diaper on their head wrapped with a fan belt.
If you want to gain a broader understanding about how we got to where we are today, read this book. News media in the west is pitiful. An informed public needs to have a solid understanding of what happened in the past before listening to media in the U.S.A. And this book gives a good balanced view from the Eastern perspective.

A Wonerful, Illuminating Book

By Karen Malpede - June 24, 2009

I loved this book, which is both the personal memoir of a fascinating broad-minded accomplished woman educator and a political history of the forces riling her enlightened world. Her empathy for Jewish refugees and their children whom she educates in her cosmpolitan school is balanced against her knowledge of the plight of the Palestinian children, separated from family and land, whom she also educates and cares for. She worked for and longed for tolerance, acceptance, and the integration into a cosmopolitan life of people of all faiths and creeds; she watched the dream recede until it ended in Civil War in Lebanon, the expulsion of the Palestinians and a militarized Israeli state. Through it all, she found sustenance in music, in the accomplishments of her students, and of her own four children, in the stories of the people who lived in her mountain village, and in the beauty of the land. The world she loved and brings to life is a world all people of good will might love. With... read more