An Inside Story of Modern Syria

An Inside Story of Modern Syria PDF Author: Omar Imady
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
ISBN: 1526780496
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
The Syrian Arab Republic has rarely been out of the headlines following the rise to power of Hafiz al-Asad in 1970 and Bashar al-Asad in 2000 and has been at the heart of the popular protests which have come to be known as the Arab Spring. This is a political biography of the author's father, Dr Muhammad Imady, the longest-serving minister of economy in modern Syria, and holder of several senior government posts. Dr Imady served at the center of government, personally and professionally, during Hafiz al-Asad’s presidency, and was an intimate and objective observer of all aspects of Syria's turbulent history. Omar Imady follows his father’s story from his beginnings to the present day, charting out the seemingly never-ending civil conflict, human suffering, and international interventions that plague the country’s past and present. This is an inside story based on rare sources and experiences from both father and son. It illustrates the original and unique contribution of Muhammad Imady as a 'Damascene Reformer', a rare individual who pursued the seemingly impossible task of implementing positive change while serving a regime that demanded obedience and loyalty in response to actions often at odds with Muhammad Imady’s own liberal democratic political ideas. At its heart, this book examines the timeless challenge of maintaining one’s own integrity and principles in the face of a power system which seems bent on promoting the opposite.

An Inside Story of Modern Syria

An Inside Story of Modern Syria PDF Author: Omar Imady
Publisher: Pen and Sword History
ISBN: 1526780496
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Syrian Arab Republic has rarely been out of the headlines following the rise to power of Hafiz al-Asad in 1970 and Bashar al-Asad in 2000 and has been at the heart of the popular protests which have come to be known as the Arab Spring. This is a political biography of the author's father, Dr Muhammad Imady, the longest-serving minister of economy in modern Syria, and holder of several senior government posts. Dr Imady served at the center of government, personally and professionally, during Hafiz al-Asad’s presidency, and was an intimate and objective observer of all aspects of Syria's turbulent history. Omar Imady follows his father’s story from his beginnings to the present day, charting out the seemingly never-ending civil conflict, human suffering, and international interventions that plague the country’s past and present. This is an inside story based on rare sources and experiences from both father and son. It illustrates the original and unique contribution of Muhammad Imady as a 'Damascene Reformer', a rare individual who pursued the seemingly impossible task of implementing positive change while serving a regime that demanded obedience and loyalty in response to actions often at odds with Muhammad Imady’s own liberal democratic political ideas. At its heart, this book examines the timeless challenge of maintaining one’s own integrity and principles in the face of a power system which seems bent on promoting the opposite.

The New Lion of Damascus

The New Lion of Damascus PDF Author: David W. Lesch
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780300109917
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
An account of contemporary Syria, its extraordinary leader, and its current and future place in the Middle East.

Ancient Syria

Ancient Syria PDF Author: Trevor Bryce
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191002925
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 394

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Book Description
Syria has long been one of the most trouble-prone and politically volatile regions of the Near and Middle Eastern world. This book looks back beyond the troubles of the present to tell the 3000-year story of what happened many centuries before. Trevor Bryce reveals the peoples, cities, and kingdoms that arose, flourished, declined, and disappeared in the lands that now constitute Syria, from the time of it's earliest written records in the third millennium BC until the reign of the Roman emperor Diocletian at the turn of the 3-4th century AD. Across the centuries, from the Bronze Age to the Rome Era, we encounter a vast array of characters and civilizations, enlivening, enriching, and besmirching the annals of Syrian history: Hittite and Assyrian Great Kings; Egyptian pharaohs; Amorite robber-barons; the biblically notorious Nebuchadnezzar; Persia's Cyrus the Great and Macedon's Alexander the Great; the rulers of the Seleucid empire; and an assortment of Rome's most distinguished and most infamous emperors. All swept across the plains of Syria at some point in her long history. All contributed, in one way or another, to Syria's special, distinctive character, as they imposed themselves upon it, fought one another within it, or pillaged their way through it. But this is not just a history of invasion and oppression. Syria had great rulers of her own, native-born Syrian luminaries, sometimes appearing as local champions who sought to liberate their lands from foreign despots, sometimes as cunning, self-seeking manipulators of squabbles between their overlords. They culminate with Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, whose life provides a fitting grand finale to the first three millennia of Syria's recorded history. The conclusion looks forward to the Muslim conquest in the 7th century AD: in many ways the opening chapter in the equally complex and often troubled history of modern Syria.

Assad or We Burn the Country

Assad or We Burn the Country PDF Author: Sam Dagher
Publisher: Little, Brown
ISBN: 031655670X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 591

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Book Description
From a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist specializing in the Middle East, this groundbreaking account of the Syrian Civil War reveals the never-before-published true story of a 21st-century humanitarian disaster. In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising -- an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis. Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria's tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged in Bashar's bloody quest to preserve his father's inheritance. By drawing on his own reporting experience in Damascus and exclusive interviews with Tlass, Dagher takes readers within palace walls to reveal the family behind the destruction of a country and the chaos of an entire region. Dagher shows how one of the world's most vicious police states came to be and explains how a regional conflict extended globally, engulfing the Middle East and pitting the United States and Russia against one another. Timely, propulsive, and expertly reported, Assad or We Burn the Country is the definitive account of this global crisis, going far beyond the news story that has dominated headlines for years.

The Merchant of Syria

The Merchant of Syria PDF Author: Diana Darke
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190874856
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 358

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Book Description
Tells the life of Abu Chaker, a cloth merchant from Homs who lived from 1921 to 2013. Drawing on interviews conducted in Syria, Lebanon and Britain, Abu Chaker's story exemplifies many of today's pressing global issues -- poverty, Islamic values, religious co-existence, refugees, displacement, multiculturalism, political unrest and terrorism.

The Home That Was Our Country

The Home That Was Our Country PDF Author: Alia Malek
Publisher: Bold Type Books
ISBN: 1568585330
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 427

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Book Description
At the Arab Spring's hopeful start, Alia Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parent's decision to make their lives in America. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Alia portrays the Syrians-the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds-who worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters, mirroring the political shifts in their country. Restoring her family's home as the country comes apart, she learns how to speak the coded language of oppression that exists in a dictatorship, while privately confronting her own fears about Syria's future. The Home That Was Our Country is a deeply researched, personal journey that shines a delicate but piercing light on Syrian history, society, and politics. Teeming with insights, the narrative weaves acute political analysis with a century of intimate family history, ultimately delivering an unforgettable portrait of the Syria that is being erased.

Destroying a Nation

Destroying a Nation PDF Author: Nikolaos Van Dam
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786722488
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Following the Arab Spring, Syria descended into civil and sectarian conflict. It has since become a fractured warzone which operates as a breeding ground for new terrorist movements including ISIS as well as the root cause of the greatest refugee crisis in modern history. In this important book, former Special Envoy of the Netherlands to Syria, Nikolaos van Dam, explains the recent history of Syria, covering the growing disenchantment with the Asad regime, the chaos of civil war and the fractures which led to an immense amount of destruction in the refined social fabric of what used to be the Syrian nation. Through an in-depth examination, van Dam traces political developments within the Asad regime and the various opposition groups from the Arab Spring to the present day, and provides a deeper insight into the conflict and the possibilities and obstacles for reaching a political solution.

A History of Modern Lebanon

A History of Modern Lebanon PDF Author: Fawwaz Traboulsi
Publisher: Pluto Press
ISBN: 9780745324371
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
-- A stunning history of Lebanon over five centuries --"Skillfully weaving together social, political, cultural and economic history, this deeply informed and penetrating study provides a rich understanding of the vibrant, tragic, but ever hopeful Leban

Syria

Syria PDF Author: Dawn Chatty
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190876069
Category : Antiques & Collectibles
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
A leading expert offers the definitive account of Syria's long history of welcoming, and now exporting, refugees

My House in Damascus

My House in Damascus PDF Author: Diana Darke
Publisher: Haus Publishing
ISBN: 1908323655
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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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.