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Recovering from 15 years of civil strife, Lebanon’s capital now strives to rebuild its landscape as well as its spirit. Peter Theroux, whose article “Beirut Rising,” appears in September’s GEOGRAPHIC, encountered a city where “a semblance of ordinary life has returned.... Honking car horns have replaced the sounds of gunfire.”

But Habib C. Malik, author of Between Damascus and Jerusalem: Lebanon and Middle East Peace, writes, “Giving precedence to physical and material reconstruction of the city over the restoration and rejuvenation of Lebanon’s eclipsed freedoms is placing the cart before the horse.” Read Malik’s essay, “Reconstruction Can’t Precede Freedom,” and join our discussion on Beirut’s future.

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