Motivated by hope and history, the American University of Beirut is planning its own - and Lebanon's - resurgence from the ashes of civil war. Graduates' strong family feelings help make AUB a proud survivor.

Translator, poet, critic, editor and scholar, Salma Jayyusi is working to build a bridge of books from the Arab to the English-speaking world. Her Project for Translation from Arabic has led more than 20 books into print.

Watchtowers, forts, castles and strongholds of all kinds dot the craggy landscapes of Oman. Built by rulers - and would-be rulers - of the past, many that played a role in the country's history are being lovingly restored.

"Oh the mud! The rains! The snow! The wind! Robert College founder Cyrus Hamlin set out with his wife Mary on a horseback honeymoon trip to Samsun, on Turkey's Black Sea coast, in 1859. It turned into a memorable nightmare.

"So rich, so beautiful, and so complex" were the 18th- and 19th-century costumes worn by Palestinian villagers and Bedouins that they amounted to a symbolic language that reveals much about the wearers and their society.