Dhaka, Aug. 28 -- It took the apocalyptic 4th August 2020 Beirut blast for me to scan my stack of books on Beirut and Lebanon. It took the long lockdown for me to read 'Beirut Reclaimed' (1993) which was gifted to me in 1999 by Dr. Samir Khalaf, my Professor and Chairman of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology when I was a MA student in his Department in the late 1960s at the American University of Beirut (AUB). The book remained unread for twenty-one years. It remains in spic and span condition despite its interval of close to three decades since its publication. The same cannot be said of the contents of the book. 'Beirut Reclaimed' was written post-Lebanon's long civil war (1975-1991). Reading it today, one has to assess it in ...