Dr Seth Anziska awarded British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship

Photo: Israeli soldiers pass through the city of Sidon southward during the Lebanon War, April 9, 1983. (GPO)

Dr Seth Anziska has been awarded a British Academy Mid-Career Fellowship for his research project and book An International History of Israel’s 1982 War in Lebanon.

Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon was a formative moment in Middle Eastern and international history, transforming the fate of Palestinian self-determination; Lebanese and Israeli politics, society, and culture; Israel’s regional relationships; diaspora Jewish perceptions of Zionism; and western policy across the Arab world. Yet the war has been elided in public discourse and remains a black box of historical scholarship, the result of selective amnesia, political convenience, and the difficulty of access to primary sources across political divides.

In recovering this past and documenting the experience of those who lived it, his book project offers the first comprehensive international history of the war while advancing a host of public facing engagements about its legacy. By combining oral histories as well as an online repository of sources accompanying a scholarly book, and facilitating intergenerational discussions of the findings, his research seeks to advance political dialogue and memorialization across national borders.