The Damascus Events
The 1860 Massacre and the Making of the Modern Middle East
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An award-winning scholar’s account of an ancient city’s descent into unprecedented communal violence—an event that would mark the end of the old Ottoman order and the beginning of the modern Middle East
On July 9, 1860, a violent mob swept through the Christian quarters of Damascus. For eight days, violence raged, leaving five thousand Christians dead, thousands of shops looted, and churches, houses, and monasteries razed. The sudden and ferocious outbreak shocked the world, leaving Syrian Christians vulnerable and fearing renewed violence.
Drawn from never-before-seen eyewitness accounts of the Damascus Events, eminent Middle East historian Eugene Rogan tells the story of how a peaceful multicultural city came to be engulfed in slaughter. He traces how rising tensions between Muslim and Christian communities led some to regard extermination as a reasonable solution. Rogan also narrates the wake of this disaster, and how the Ottoman government moved quickly to retake control of the city, end the violence, and reintegrate Christians into the community. These efforts to rebuild Damascus proved successful, preserving peace for the next 150 years until 2011.
The Damascus Events offers a vivid history, one that masterfully uncovers the outbreak of violence that unmade a great city and examines the possibility, even after searing conflict and unimaginable tragedy, of repair.
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A bloodthirsty mob sweeps through the Christian quarters of 19th-century Damascus, leaving thousands dead, in this propulsive account from historian Rogan (The Fall of the Ottomans). Drawing from firsthand reports of the July 1860 massacre as it was chronicled by U.S. vice-consul Mikhayil Mishaqa, Rogan frames it as the moment when the Ottoman empire's multicultural coexistence began to break down. He traces developments that led to the violence, including local Muslims' resistance to Ottoman reforms and their concerns about European influence; regional conflict between Druzes, Muslims, and Christians; and the erratic behavior of Damascus's governor, Ahmad Pasha. In the blistering July heat, the arrest and punishment of several Muslim youths (they were ordered to sweep the Christian quarters, a particular insult) sparked a mania that engulfed the city for more than a week. Mishaqa himself was brutally beaten amid the frenzy of "plunder, kill, and burn." Christian survivors were hidden by friendly Muslims until Ottoman reformer and statesman Faud Pasha arrived and restored order, punishing the guilty and rebuilding the devastated city while balancing Muslim and Christian interests and resisting European interference. The city's resulting peace held for 150 years, even as, according to Rogan, the same pattern of sectarian violence emerged throughout the Middle East. A harrowing piece of storytelling with enormous insight, this is a must-read for Middle East history buffs.
