General project management Corresponding member RAS V. V. Naumkin, ed. by V. N. Sautov and Amal Abu Zeid. Moscow: Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2013, 500 p. The book under review by M. A. Rodionov and A. V. Sarabyev is a serious, interesting and valuable study of the socio-cultural, economic and everyday traditions, political and ideological history, social role and current state of one of the most influential Christian communities in the Middle East, the Maronites. We can agree with the authors of the preface to the book, corresponding members of the Russian Academy of Sciences I. S. Ivanov and V. V. Naumkin: "The publication of this book is very timely and relevant, primarily due to the serious aggravation of inter-confessional and intra-confessional (including between different interpretations of Islam) contradictions both in Lebanon and abroad. There is no need to prove that these contradictions directly affect the interests of our country... In the context of increased conflict and turbulent processes that have engulfed the region, including the emergence of fundamentalist, Salafist and even jihadist groups, the very existence of Christians in the Middle East is now under threat " (p. 3). Lebanon has been embroiled in pan-Arab processes since 1948, both by repeated participation in the Arab-Israeli wars and by internal political contradictions with confessional roots. The number of denominations in Lebanon exceeds 12, but the exact figure can hardly be called, since almost throughout its history, Lebanon was, on the one hand, a constant source of migration (mainly to Africa and America), and on the other, it was itself an object of attraction for migrants, mainly from Arab countries (and not only Arabs, but also Turks, Turkmens, Assyrians, Kurds, Circassians, etc.), as well as from the Mediterranean countries, in particular Greece, Italy, Albania, Croatia, Bosnia, which, as a rule, diversified and expanded the number of faith ... Читать далее