Quote of the Day: From "Mapping Beirut: Toward a History of the Translation of Space from the French Mandate through the Civil War (1920–91)"

Maps are traces left behind by the operation of power, and they reflect the production of spatial relations and exclusions. The way in which Beirut has been understood as a symbol first for the promise, then the failure, of a secular, liberal multi-ethnic city in the Arab Middle East is revealing both of the geography of Eurocentric historical imaginaries and of the strengths, incoherence, and frailties of modern forms of power
— Hatim El-Hibri