A workshop organised by the Centre for Lebanese Studies and was held in collaboration with the Middle East Centre at St. Antony’s College, Oxford. It brought young scholars working on Lebanon in Britain, France and the United States together with established academics in order to assess the state-of the-art of Lebanese studies. Participants included Dr Axel Havemann, Prof Engin Akarli, Dr Michael Kuderna, Mr Nabil Beyhum, Dr Fida Nasrallah, Dr George Irani, Dr Carolyn Gates, Dr Nawaf Kabbara, Dr William Harris and Dr Farid el-Khazen. The topics covered varied from peasant movements in 19th century Lebanon, the restructuring of urban Beirut, ethnic and religious factors in the construction of Lebanon, the Vatican and the war in Lebanon, to Lebanon’s political economy and the disintegration of the confessional system.