Michael Tot­ten lived in Beirut and cov­ered the Mid­dle East as an inde­pen­dent for­eign cor­re­spon­dent for a num­ber of lead­ing news­pa­pers and mag­a­zines. In his high­ly per­son­al nar­ra­tive, The Road to Fati­ma Gate: The Beirut Spring, The Rise of Hezbol­lah and The Iran­ian War Against Israel, we see the unfold­ing of his­to­ry through his eyes. A for­eign pol­i­cy ana­lyst as well as a for­eign cor­re­spon­dent, Tot­ten gives read­ers his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tives and clear expla­na­tions of the bewil­der­ing com­plex­i­ties of this region.

All the plan­ning and prepa­ra­tion Tot­ten did before his assign­ments could not have pre­pared him for the life-threat­en­ing real­i­ties he expe­ri­enced on the ground. One gets the feel­ing that at any moment he could have been killed. Noth­ing pro­tect­ed him. He began with the illu­sion that being a mem­ber of the inter­na­tion­al press corps would keep him safe, but he quick­ly learned that only luck and a very good set of friends, con­tacts, and trans­la­tors allowed him to cov­er his sto­ries and stay alive.

The Road to Fati­ma Gate is a beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten, mar­velous­ly enter­tain­ing, and nail bit­ing entry into aspects of Lebanon that we sel­dom see.