Abi-Rached and Diwan reconstruct the public finances of Lebanon and the four Syrian states set up under the French Mandate between 1920 and 1943, building fiscal accounts out of the annual reports France was obliged to submit to the Permanent Mandates Commission. Education policy and educational outcomes in Lebanon receive the closest attention.

Three findings emerge. Revenue raised locally went largely toward France's army and its policing apparatus instead of infrastructure or social provision. Schooling and health care were left to private and missionary providers. The resulting private school system served Christians well and left the Muslim population badly underserved.

Set against French colonies elsewhere in Africa and Asia, the Mandate in Lebanon looks heavily taxed and thinly developed, with a smaller share of what was collected going toward development. The authors trace Lebanon's later privatization of basic social services to that missing public foundation.