The author's indulgence in the classic sins of a novice book writer distract from his useful analysis. The first person pronoun appears regularly, and most distressingly, other authors' efforts are dismissed as "reportorial myopia," "opportunistic," "self-deceiving," and "piffle." Norton indulges in frequent references to his own articles (including even a 750-word op-ed piece), and his study exudes an unwholesome tone of arrogance.
But if the reader can inure himself to these deficiencies he will learn much about the recent rise to power of the Lebanese Shi'is. Rejecting the common notion that it was the Iranian revolution that caused this once disorganized community to find itself politically, Norton argues that "the present activism of the Lebanese Shi'a is the result of a long process of modernization." He emphasizes the uprooting of the Shi'a from their traditional was and shows how the civil war intensified this process. Looking to the future, he sees an inexorable process of partition in Lebanon.
