Syria
A Modern History
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
A landmark new history of Syria—a country forged in conflict, cursed by civil war and dictatorship, and pivotal to the future of the Middle East
“A masterful history of Syria that is both sweeping in scope and brimming with vivid detail...a riveting and insightful book.” —Wendy Pearlman, author of We Crossed A Bridge and It Trembled
Modern Syria has seen violence, repression, and autocracy, suffering through tragedy after tragedy over the past century. Yet the history of Syria is not just a tale of dictators and generals. From the 1800s to the 2020s, the Syrian people have engaged in a passionate struggle for justice, equality, and a better future.
Whether fighting for national independence from French colonial rule, battling local landowning elites to share the country’s wealth, or rising up against the Assad regime, the Syrian people have fiercely clung to their right to live with respect and dignity. Theirs is a story of protest and perseverance in the long fight to reshape the political destiny of their nation.
Daniel Neep’s Syria: A Modern History offers a gripping narrative of how Syrians have navigated these events. Never losing sight of the fates of ordinary people, it provides a comprehensive account of how a nation born in conflict nevertheless sustained a rich, complex, and diverse society that will now chart its own path into the uncertain future.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Political scientist Neep (Occupying Syria Under the French Mandate) offers a nuanced history of Syria since the 1800s. Then as now, the region comprised a diverse mix of ethnic and religious groups; the rise of a modern Arab identity helped inhabitants rally together against Ottoman, English, and French imperial rule beginning at the turn of the 20th century. Post-independence, the idea of pan-Arab reunification with neighboring countries became a major source of political contention within the fledgling nation, inflamed at various moments by Israeli expansionism and Western interventionism, and complicated by rising disillusionment with the country's elites, all of which contributed to the ascendancy of the populist Ba'ath party in the 1950s. After a brief unification with the authoritarian Egyptian government, the increasingly militant Ba'ath party propelled Hafez al-Assad to power in 1970; his decades-long rule of Syria through wily political machinations and brute force led to a pressure cooker of tensions that, exacerbated by the unfulfilled promises of his son, Bashar al-Assad, resulted in the Syrian Civil War. Neep's eye for detail helps him mount challenges against some long-standing truisms, such as the Ottoman Empire's characterization as the "Sick Man of Europe," and offers insight into pressing contemporary questions, including the connections between Syria's current leadership and the Islamic State. While occasionally dense, it's an illuminating, comprehensive study of the region.
