Originally presented as the author's thesis (master's)--al-Jāmiʻah al-Urdunīyah, 1985. / At head of cover title: al-Jāmiʻah al-Urdunīyah, Jāmiʻat al-Yarmūk. Includes bibliographical references (p. 231-250).

The county of Tripoli (Lebanon) was one of four “crusader states” established in the Levant after the First Crusade (1095-99). Compared to the other states, the county of Tripoli has suffered from a disproportionate level of historiographical neglect. What has been produced has taken an institutional and Eurocentric approach to the subject and its sources. The present thesis jettisons this in favour of a post-institutional methodology, approaching the county from the perspectives of geography and demographics, which together ensure that it is treated within its proper Syro-Lebanese context. Chapter one looks at the role of local geography in shaping the political frontiers of the county of Tripoli and its neighbours, arguing that topography was more important than the agency of the European settlers. Chapter two continues to challenge traditional assumptions regarding European influence, arguing that the specifically southern French origins of many of the county’s settlers were of little significance. Chapter three analyses the use of Arabic by the Frankish government of the county, informed by an awareness of diglossia. It argues that the Franks were more likely to know spoken Arabic than written, but remained reliant upon local intermediaries when ruling over Arabophones. Chapter four looks at popular religion, arguing that the cross-fertilisation of religious beliefs and practices was widespread but poorly understood by the contemporary intelligentsia, upon whose sources historians rely. As a whole, the thesis argues that the county’s inhabitants lacked a distinctive culture, identity, religion or language. The sole justification for viewing the county as an integrated unit is geographical.

L'agglomération de Tripoli Al-Fayhā’a (Liban) est riche d'une histoire complexe et mouvementée. Depuis un siècle, sa société doit faire face à de profondes mutations aux causes et conséquences multiples, mais essentiellement liées à la reconfiguration de ses structures économiques engendrée par son incorporation dans le Liban moderne. Ancienne cité commerciale rayonnante à vocation régionale et internationale, Tripoli a perdu de son dynamisme économique. Elle ne produit plus suffisamment de richesses pour assurer à sa population une continuité de sa prospérité passée. Elle est devenue le lieu de combats physiques, économiques et symboliques dans lequel ses habitants luttent quotidiennement pour assurer leur subsistance. Postulant l'établissement d'une économie désormais principalement fondée sur des logiques de rente foncière et immobilière et de spéculation, notre thèse se propose d'analyser les raisons et la véritable teneur de ce mode de production urbaine particulier, ainsi que ses mécanismes et effets, sous l'angle de l'étude, dans la durée, des spatialités relatives à trois projets urbains : l'aménagement du littoral, la réalisation d'une opération de remembrement à finalité immobilière de jardins périurbains et le réaménagement et la mise en valeur de la médina. L'analyse des systèmes d'actions caractérisant ces trois situations ‒ appréhendées dans leurs dynamiques spatiales, historiques et sociopolitiques ainsi qu’aux échelles locale, régionale, nationale et internationale ‒, invite à questionner le sens des urbanités et de l'éventuelle citadinité en jeu à Tripoli et, au-delà, la nature fondamentale du pouvoir qui s'y exerce. Elle nous conduit alors à nous interroger sur la formation et l'existence, ainsi que P. Bourdieu la désignerait, d'une illusio immobilière, produit et productrice d'un puissant « affect commun » joyeux, laquelle serait parvenue ‒ en suivant la proposition de B. Spinoza ‒ à un état d'imperium aux conséquences humaines et gouvernementales insoutenables. / The Tripoli Al-Fayha’ a (Lebanon) urban area has a complex and eventful history. For a century its society has been facing transformative changes with a multitude of sources and consequences essentially linked to the reconfiguration of its economic structures born of its incorporation into modern Lebanon. Once an ancient and influential commercial city with regional and international reach, Tripoli has lost much of its economic vitality. It no longer creates sufficient wealth to provide its population with the continuation of past prosperity. It has become a place of physical, economic and symbolic battles in which its inhabitants struggle daily to ensure their livelihood. Postulating the establishment of an economy now principally based on a system of land and real-estate rent and of speculation, our thesis is proposing to analyse the reasons and true tenor of this particular process of production of urban space, as well as its mechanisms and effects, as a study, over time, of the spatialities linked to three urban projects: coastal planning, the realization of a real-estate driven land reparcelling of suburban orchards, and the redevelopment and enhancement of the Medina. The analysis of the sets of actions specific to these three situations – taken in their spatial, historical, and sociopolitical dynamics as well as on a local, regional, national, and international scale – invites one to question the meaning of urbanities and of a possible citadinity at play in Tripoli and, beyond this, to question the fundamental nature of the power exercised there. This analysis leads us then to ponder on the formation and existence of, as P. Bourdieu would designate it, a real-estate illusio, produced from and producing a powerful pleasurable “common affect”, which has reached – following B. Spinoza’s proposition – a state of imperium with unsustainable human and governmental consequences.