Dylan Baun, "Beirut Radical: A Global Microhistory from the Sixties to the Lebanese Civil War" (I.B. Tauris, 2026)

About this episode

Dylan Baun discusses his book 'Beirut Radical', exploring the life of Imad Yusuf Nuwayhid and the complexities of leftist identity during the Lebanese Civil War.

Imad Yusuf Nuwayhid was born in 1944 in the Lebanese village of Ras al-Matn. He came of age in the 1960s, splitting time between Beirut and Europe. And he died in 1975, the start of the Lebanese Civil War. But who was Imad Nuwayhid? Was he a leftist intellectual? A self-interested hotel worker? A fighter dedicated to Palestinian liberation? A tragic symbol of what happened to those caught in the crosshairs during the war? Through archival and oral history, Beirut Radical finds that Imad was none of these things alone, but all of them together.Beirut Radical: A Global Microhistory from the Sixties to the Lebanese Civil War (I.B. Tauris, 2026) takes up Imad Nuwayhid as a global microhistory-a window into the global sixties, the war, and its aftermath. Baun argues that Imad's beliefs and actions, crystalized during two tumultuous decades of the Cold War, signal a young generation of what he terms “practical radicals.” While much more is known about their politics and support for left-wing ideologies, Imad's life highlights how they pursued them, equally, alongside their career aspirations. Imad's death in the war, then, shows the twisting path by which some young leftists ceded…

People in this episode

Host: Marshall Poe

Guest: Dylan Baun

Topics covered

• Lebanese history
• Cold War
• leftist movements
• oral history
• microhistory
• personal narratives

Keywords

• Imad Yusuf Nuwayhid
• Lebanon
• Beirut
• leftist intellectual
• Palestinian liberation
• Cold War
• microhistory
• oral history
• Lebanese Civil War

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: I.B. Tauris

Books & works: Beirut Radical: A Global Microhistory from the Sixties to the Lebanese Civil War

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