‘Beirut 2020’ Portends What Awaits America

This summer, the World Bank declared Lebanon’s ongoing economic crisis to be among the world’s top ten worst since the mid-1800s. The political crisis is just as serious, bearing responsibility for the country’s economic collapse.

Both are framed in sharp relief by Charif Majdalani’s riveting chronicle Beirut 2020: Diary of the Collapse. The short, diary-like entries span several months of 2020, encompassing the growing economic crisis, the intractable struggle for political reform, the coronavirus pandemic, and the destructive 4 August explosion at the Port of Beirut which killed 218 people, caused $15 billion in damage, and left 300,000 homeless. (It also led to the collapse of the government, to no lasting effect.)