A two day conference held at St. Antony’s College Oxford. The launch of a programme of revision of Lebanon’s history. This conference, organised by the Centre for Lebanese Studies was essentially a re-examination and a re-assessment of Lebanon’s history. The aim of the conference was to investigate the nature, causes and limits of the alternations of harmony and breakdown in the history of Lebanon from 1830 to 1975. The first date was chosen because it marks the beginning of the Egyptian occupation of Lebanon and the surrounding region, and the active interest of the European powers in them; the last date chosen coincides with the beginning of the civil war. Participants, who included most of the leading historians on Lebanon, covered the eras of the Mutasarrifiyya, the Qa’immaqamiyya, Greater Lebanon, independent Lebanon, and the modern state.