Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender, and the Middle Class in Lebanon, 1870-1920

Between 1890 and 1920 over one—third of the peasants of Mount Lebanon left their villages and traveled to the Americas. This book traces the journeys of these villagers from the ranks of the peasantry into a middle class of their own making.

Inventing Home delves into the stories of these travels, shedding much needed light on the impact of emigration and immigration in the development of modernity. It focuses on a critical period in the social history of Lebanon—the "long peace" between th...