A House In Damascus - Before The Fall

A House In Damascus - Before The Fall PDF Author: Brian Stoddart
Publisher: ePublishing Works!
ISBN: 1614173567
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 269

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Book Description
As Syria confronts an uncertain future, A House in Damascus seeks to balance the Western view with the lives and views of the everyday people living in the world’s oldest continuing capital city Drawn from the author's experiences occurring immediately before the 2011-2012 social and political upheaval, each story traces the Old City of Damascus and its people's present through the past, capturing the universal human element often missing from the strategic and political accounts. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Brian Stoddart is an Emeritus Professor of La Trobe University in Melbourne. Trained as a social historian, he now works as an international higher education reform consultant in countries such as Lao PDR, Cambodia, Jordan and Syria. www.professorbrianstoddart.com

A House In Damascus - Before The Fall

A House In Damascus - Before The Fall PDF Author: Brian Stoddart
Publisher: ePublishing Works!
ISBN: 1614173567
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 269

Get Book

Book Description
As Syria confronts an uncertain future, A House in Damascus seeks to balance the Western view with the lives and views of the everyday people living in the world’s oldest continuing capital city Drawn from the author's experiences occurring immediately before the 2011-2012 social and political upheaval, each story traces the Old City of Damascus and its people's present through the past, capturing the universal human element often missing from the strategic and political accounts. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Brian Stoddart is an Emeritus Professor of La Trobe University in Melbourne. Trained as a social historian, he now works as an international higher education reform consultant in countries such as Lao PDR, Cambodia, Jordan and Syria. www.professorbrianstoddart.com

My House in Damascus

My House in Damascus PDF Author: Diana Darke
Publisher: Haus Publishing
ISBN: 1908323655
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
The ongoing conflict in Syria has made clear just how limited the general knowledge of Syrian society and history is in the West. For those watching the headlines and wondering what led the nation to this point, and what might come next, this book is a perfect place to start developing a deeper understanding. Based on decades of living and working in Syria, My House in Damascus offers an inside view of Syria’s cultural and complex religious and ethnic communities. Diana Darke, a fluent Arabic speaker who moved to Damascus in 2004 after decades of regular visits, details the ways that the Assad regime, and its relationship to the people, differs from the regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya—and why it was thus always less likely to collapse quickly, even in the face of widespread unrest and violence. Through the author’s firsthand experiences of buying and restoring a house in the old city of Damascus, which she later offered as a sanctuary to friends, Darke presents a clear picture of the realities of life on the ground and what hope there is for Syria’s future.

Damascus Station: A Novel

Damascus Station: A Novel PDF Author: David McCloskey
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393881059
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 347

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Book Description
Finalist for the 2022 ITW Thriller Award for Best First Novel "Damascus Station is simply marvelous storytelling.…[A] stand-out thriller and essential reading for fans of the genre." —Financial Times A CIA officer and his recruit arrive in war-ravaged Damascus to hunt for a killer in this page-turner that offers the "most authentic depiction of modern-day tradecraft in print." (Navy SEAL sniper and New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr). CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian Palace official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, which supercharges Haddad’s recruitment and creates unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy. But the cat and mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Assad’s spy catcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the feared Republican Guard. Set against the backdrop of a Syria pulsing with fear and rebellion, Damascus Station is a gripping thriller that offers a textured portrayal of espionage, love, loyalty, and betrayal in one of the most difficult CIA assignments on the planet.

Damascus

Damascus PDF Author: Brigid Keenan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780500282991
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
Damascus, reputed to be the worldʹs oldest continually inhabited city, has enjoyed a history of immense grandeur, enormous political and mercantile power, and great cultural and artistic achievement. In addition to some of Islamʹs most magnificent architecture, such as the Umayyad Mosque, the city boasts a heritage of fairy-tale palaces and sumptuous private houses. Sadly, many of them are in urgent need of restoration. Brigid Keenan and Tim Beddow were given unprecedented access to the inner, "hidden" city, which has resulted in a book that is of immense importance to all concerned with the heritage of architecture in the Islamic world. The superb photographs include façades, courtyards, alleyways and fountains, and the breathtaking interiors that often lie behind the unassuming walls of the old town, with exquisite details in stone, wood, paint, marble, plaster, glass and mother-of-pearl. The whole, published with the generous support of Wafic Rida Said, forms a convincing and elegiac plea for the preservation of the heart of this historic ancient capital. -- Jacket.

Night Falls on Damascus

Night Falls on Damascus PDF Author: Frederick Highland
Publisher: Minotaur Books
ISBN: 1429971509
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
A crime of passion brings on a harrowing criminal investigation in a divided land Set in the exotic and turbulent world of Syria in the 1930s, Night Falls on Damascus tells the story of a French-Syrian police inspector, Nikolai Faroun, caught up in a complex murder investigation of a beautiful and controversial woman from a prominent Damascus family. Vera Tamiri made enemies for her good works as well as her cosmopolitanism. On one hand was she was a social reformer who had tried to advance the health and welfare of Arab women in a volatile community hemmed in by custom and hostile to social change. However, Vera had a shadowy side: she cultivated a Bohemian pose, gambled recklessly, and was not always wise in her choice of companions---and lovers. Faroun suspects that she may have fallen victim to a gruesome crime of passion. However, he soon realizes that there is more to this crime than a jealous lover. In a country chafing under foreign rule and divided by sectarian strife, Vera Tamiri made a tempting political target. In a city seething with anger and revolt, Inspector Faroun begins unraveling a conspiracy from Syria's troubled past, a secret that Vera may have uncovered---at the cost of her life. As the elements of a sinister and elusive crime bubble to the surface, Faroun must be careful not to bring to light secrets of his own---the real reason for his presence in Damascus and a compromising relationship with the beautiful and willful wife of a well-connected French businessman. All games, in the end, must be played against the dark backdrop of a city that has been the center of Middle Eastern intrigue for millennia, the stony ground where Cain slew Abel, where Saladin once ruled, and where Nikolai Faroun must discover the key to the murder of a courageous woman who dared to disturb the ancient order. A gripping murder mystery, Night Falls on Damascus richly evokes a time and place where the deadly conflict between modernism and tradition in the Middle East first came into play. Praise for Ghost Eaters "A swashbuckling, seafaring novel with mystical overtones." ---Publishers Weekly "An exciting, smoothly written naval adventure set in Malaysia during 1875. Touching on the politics of war, the power of superstition, and the fragility of civilization, this is exhilarating escapist fare." ---Booklist "The book is peopled with rich, enigmatic characters whose pasts are shrouded in mystery and whose motives are close held secrets." ---Jim Nelson, author of the Revolution at Sea series "Glorious shades of Joseph Conrad, but with wry humor! Splendidly written and an intriguing adventure /mystery in the grand old style." ---Dewey Lambdin, author of the Alan Lewrie series "Unashamedly and convincingly Conradian in its subject matter and scope, and in the raw and elemental language of its telling . . . this is the work of a devoted and accomplished storyteller, and of a gifted writer and craftsman, for whom the completed tale is considerably more than the sum of its parts." ---Robert Edric, author of The Broken Lands

Syria

Syria PDF Author: David W. Lesch
Publisher: Polity
ISBN: 9781509527519
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Today Syria is a country known for all the wrong reasons: civil war, vicious sectarianism, and major humanitarian crisis. But how did this once rich, multi-cultural society end up as the site of one of the twenty-first century’s most devastating and brutal conflicts? In this incisive book, internationally renowned Syria expert David Lesch takes the reader on an illuminating journey through the last hundred years of Syrian history – from the end of the Ottoman empire through to the current civil war. The Syria he reveals is a fractured mosaic, whose identity (or lack thereof) has played a crucial part in its trajectory over the past century. Only once the complexities and challenges of Syria’s history are understood can this pivotal country in the Middle East begin to rebuild and heal.

A Disappearance in Damascus

A Disappearance in Damascus PDF Author: Deborah Campbell
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 1250147891
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
Winner of the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction Winner of the Freedom to Read Award Winner of the Hubert Evans Prize In the midst of an unfolding international crisis, renowned journalist Deborah Campbell finds herself swept up in the mysterious disappearance of Ahlam, her guide and friend. Campbell’s frank, personal account of a journey through fear and the triumph of friendship and courage is as riveting as it is illuminating. The story begins in 2007, when Deborah Campbell travels undercover to Damascus to report on the exodus of Iraqis into Syria, following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. There she meets and hires Ahlam, a refugee working as a “fixer”—providing Western media with trustworthy information and contacts to help get the news out. Ahlam has fled her home in Iraq after being kidnapped while running a humanitarian center. She supports her husband and two children while working to set up a makeshift school for displaced girls. Strong and charismatic, she has become an unofficial leader of the refugee community. Campbell is inspired by Ahlam’s determination to create something good amid so much suffering, and the two women become close friends. But one morning, Ahlam is seized from her home in front of Campbell’s eyes. Haunted by the prospect that their work together has led to her friend’s arrest, Campbell spends the months that follow desperately trying to find Ahlam—all the while fearing she could be next. The compelling story of two women caught up in the shadowy politics behind today’s most searing conflict, A Disappearance in Damascus reminds us of the courage of those who risk their lives to bring us the world’s news.

The Road from Damascus

The Road from Damascus PDF Author: Robin Yassin-Kassab
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141918519
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 374

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Book Description
It is summer 2001 and Sami Traifi has escaped his fraying marriage and minimal job prospects to visit Damascus. In search of his roots and himself, he instead finds a forgotten uncle in a gloomy back room, and an ugly secret about his beloved father... Returning to London, Sami finds even more to test him as his young wife Muntaha reveals that she is taking up the hijab. Sami embarks on a wilfully ragged journey in the opposite direction, away from religion – but towards what? As Sami struggles to understand Muntaha’s newly-deepened faith, her brother Ammar’s hip hop Islamism and his father-in-law’s need to see grandchildren, so his emotional and spiritual unraveling begins to accelerate. And the more he rebels, the closer he comes to betraying those he loves, edging ever-nearer to the brink of losing everything... Set against a powerfully-evoked backdrop of multi-ethnic, multi-faith London, The Road from Damascus explores themes as big as love, faith and hope, and as fundamental as our need to believe in something bigger than ourselves, whatever that might be.

A New Old Damascus

A New Old Damascus PDF Author: Christa Salamandra
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253110411
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 222

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Book Description
"[F]illed with rare encounters with Syria's oldest, most elite families. Critics of anthropology's taste for exoticism and marginality will savor this study of upper-class Damascus, a world that is urbane and cosmopolitan, yet in many ways as remote as the settings in which the best ethnography has traditionally been done.... [Written] with a nuanced appreciation of the cultural forms in question and how Damascenes themselves think, talk about, and create them." -- Andrew Shryock In contemporary urban Syria, debates about the representation, preservation, and restoration of the Old City of Damascus have become part of status competition and identity construction among the city's elite. In theme restaurants and nightclubs that play on images of Syrian tradition, in television programs, nostalgic literature, and visual art, and in the rhetoric of historic preservation groups, the idea of the Old City has become a commodity for the consumption of tourists and, most important, of new and old segments of the Syrian upper class. In this lively ethnographic study, Christa Salamandra argues that in deploying and debating such representations, Syrians dispute the past and criticize the present. Indiana Series in Middle East Studies -- Mark Tessler, general editor

An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith

An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith PDF Author: St John Damascene
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781631741036
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description