• Introduction : A legacy of raised expectations / Christa Salamandra and Leif Stenberg
• What lies beneath : political criticism in recent Syrian fiction / Max Weiss
• Syria's drama outpouring : between complicity and critique / Christa Salamandra
• The "whisper strategy" : how Syrian drama makers shape television fiction in the context of authoritarianism and commodification / Donatella Della Ratta
• Cultural liberalization or marginalization? : the cultural politics of Syrian folk dance during social market reform / Shayna Silverstein
• Christian charities and the Ba'thist regime in Bashar al-Asad's Syria : a comparative analysis / Laura Ruiz de Elvira
• Performing the nation : Syrian Christians on the national stage / Andreas Bandak
• Merchant background, bourgeois ethics : the Syrian 'ulama' and economic liberalization / Thomas Pierret
• Muslim organizations in Bashar's Syria : the transformation of the Shaykh Ahmad Kuftaro foundation / Leif Stenberg. Modern Intellectual and Political History of the Middle East.

As Syria's anti-authoritarian uprising and subsequent civil war have left the country in ruins, the need for understanding the nation's complex political and cultural realities remains urgent. The second of a two-volume series, Syria from Reform to Revolt: Culture, Society, and Religion draws together closely observed, critical and historicized analyses, giving vital insights into Syrian society today. With a broad range of disciplinary perspectives, contributors reveal how Bashar al-Asad's pivotal first decade of rule engendered changes in power relations and public discourse-dynamics that would feed the 2011 protest movement and civil war. Essays focus on key arenas of Syrian social life, including television drama, political fiction, Islamic foundations, and Christian choirs and charities, demonstrating the ways in which Syrians worked with and through the state in attempts to reform, undermine, or sidestep the regime. The contributors explore the paradoxical cultural politics of hope, anticipation, and betrayal that have animated life in Syria under Asad, revealing the fractures that obstruct peaceful transformation. Syria from Reform to Revolt provides a powerful assessment of the conditions that turned Syria's hopeful Arab spring revolution into a catastrophic civil war that has cost over 200,000 lives and generated the worst humanitarian crisis of the twenty-first century.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Acknowledgements Preface
• 1. Revolution From Above
• 2. Bashaar's First Decade
• 3. Revolution From Below
• 4. The Grassroots
• 5. Militarisation and Liberation
• 6. Scorched Earth - The Rise of the Islamisms
• 7. Dispossession and Exile
• 8. Culture Revolutionised
• 9. The Failure of the Elites
• 10. The Start of Solidarity Epilogue List of organisations Notes Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

*Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2017* In 2011, many Syrians took to the streets of Damascus to demand the overthrown of the government of of Bashar al-Assad. Today, much of Syria has become a warzone where foreign journalists find it almost impossible to report on life in this devastated land. Burning Country explores the horrific and complicated reality of life in present-day Syria with unprecedented detail and sophistication, drawing on new first-hand testimonies from opposition fighters, exiles lost in an archipelago of refugee camps, and courageous human rights activists among many others. These stories are expertly interwoven with a trenchant analysis of the brutalisation of the conflict and the militarisation of the uprising, of the rise of the Islamists and sectarian warfare, and the role of governments in Syria and elsewhere in exacerbating those violent processes. With chapters focusing on ISIS and Islamism, regional geopolitics, the new grassroots revolutionary organisations, and the worst refugee crisis since World War Two, Burning Country is a vivid and groundbreaking look at a modern-day political and humanitarian nightmare.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The land that once was known as Shaam
• French rule, 1920-1946
• From independence to Hafez al-Assad, 1946-1970
• Hafez al-Assad, 1970-2000: foreign policy challenges
• Inside the Syria of Hafez al-Assad, 1970-2000
• Bashar al-Assad, 2000-: from succession to civil war
• Drawing the threads together.

The collapse of Syria into civil war over the past two years has spawned a regional crisis whose reverberations grow louder with each passing month. In this timely account, John McHugo seeks to contextualize the headlines, providing broad historical perspective and a richly layered analysis of a country few in the United States know or understand. McHugo charts the history of Syria from World War I to the tumultuous present, examining the country's thwarted attempts at independence, the French policies that sowed the seeds of internal strife, and the fragility of its foundations as a nation. He.

• Front Cover; Title Page; Copyright ; Contents; Series Foreword; The Consequences of Syria; I: Looking at Syria, Seeing Iraq; II: History's Seeds; III: The Devil We Know; IV: The Jihadist Alibi; About the Author; About the Hoover Institution's Herbert and Jane Dwight Working Group on Islamism and the International Order; Index.

Lee Smith analyses the current US administration's stance on Syria, questioning whether it will build the foundations of a new Middle East or usher in an era of instability that will affect the entire world. The author contends that the many apparent shifts in the administration's Syria policy were part of a messaging campaign intended to camouflage President Barack Obama's determination to stay out of the Syrian conflict. Smith concludes that the next White House will have to deal with the region that this one will hand off to it, containing more violence, betrayed allies, emboldened adversaries, and Iran on the verge of a nuclear breakout that will further destabilize a vital strategic region.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• Terrorism and hostage taking
• Patriarch Sfair : the conscience of Lebanon
• The anti-Syrian opposition movement gathers strength
• The Cedar Revolution
• The unholy alliance versus the Cedar Revolution
• Hezbollah provokes a war with Israel : July
• 12- August 14, 2006
• The international Special Tribunal for Lebanon
• A growing opposition to Hezbollah and Amal in the Shi'ite community
• The Lebanese army defeats the terrorist organization Fatah al-Islam
• Hezbollah uses force against Saad al-Hariri and Walid Jumblatt in Beirut and Mount Lebanon
• The parliamentary elections of June 2009 and the Saad al-Hariri Cabinet
• The indictment of leading Hezbollah members in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri
• The revolution in Syria
• Iran and Hezbollah are actively supporting the al-Assad regime
• President al-Assad continues his terrorist war on Lebanon
• Conclusion
• Personal note.

Marius Deeb, an Oxford-educated authority on Middle Eastern politics and history, in a sequel to his authoritative Syria's Terrorist War on Lebanon and the Peace Process, shows how the Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah axis has tried, through assassination, terrorism and force, to undermine Lebanon's Cedar Revolution that triumphed in March 2005. The Cedar Revolution began in September 2000 as a protest movement led by Patriarch Sfair, the head of the Maronite Catholic Church, and culminated on March 14, 2005, when 1.5 million demonstrated peacefully in Beirut calling for the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon and for a free, democratic, and pluralistic polity. No wonder that the Syria, Iran and Hezbollah axis has regarded the Cedar Revolution as its implacable enemy, for the Cedar Revolution is the antithesis of the Islamic revolution in Iran that demonized America and opened the floodgates of terrorism. In contrast, the Cedar Revolution is a nonviolent, democratic, and pro-Western revolution and thus an antidote to militant Islam and terrorism.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Armed conflict in Syria : background and U.S. response / Jeremy M. Sharp and Christopher M. Blanchard
• Possible U.S. intervention in Syria : issues for congress / Jeremy M. Sharp and Christopher M. Blanchard
• Syria : overview of the humanitarian response / Rhoda Margesson and Susan G. Chester
• Syria's chemical weapons : issues for congress / Mary Beth D. Nikitin, Paul K. Kerr and Andrew Feikert
• Remarks by President Obama in address to the nation on Syria.

• Debating authoritarianism
• The origins of executive authority
• Adaptation and elite co-optation
• Adaptation and nonelite co-optation
• The 2011 uprisings and the future of autocratic adaptation.

The decades-long resilience of Middle Eastern regimes meant that few anticipated the 2011 Arab Spring. But from the seemingly rapid leadership turnovers in Tunisia and Egypt to the protracted stalemates in Yemen and Syria, there remains a common outcome: ongoing control of the ruling regimes. While some analysts and media outlets rush to look for democratic breakthroughs, autocratic continuity-not wide-ranging political change-remains the hallmark of the region's upheaval. Contrasting Egypt and Syria, Joshua Stacher examines how executive power is structured in each country to show how these preexisting power configurations shaped the uprisings and, in turn, the outcomes. Presidential power in Egypt was centralized. Even as Mubarak was forced to relinquish the presidency, military generals from the regime were charged with leading the transition. The course of the Syrian uprising reveals a key difference: the decentralized character of Syrian politics. Only time will tell if Asad will survive in office, but for now, the regime continues to unify around him. While debates about election timetables, new laws, and the constitution have come about in Egypt, bloody street confrontations continue to define Syrian politics-the differences in authoritarian rule could not be more stark. Political structures, elite alliances, state institutions, and governing practices are seldom swept away entirely-even following successful revolutions-so it is vital to examine the various contexts for regime survival. Elections, protests, and political struggles will continue to define the region in the upcoming years. Examining the lead-up to the Egyptian and Syrian uprisings helps us unlock the complexity behind the protests and transitions. Without this understanding, we lack a roadmap to make sense of the Middle East's most important political moment in decades.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Damascus:dragged towards revolt
• The minorities and Syria's Revolt
• Lies, half-truths and videos: the media and the uprising
• The gap between state and society
• Revolution through the eyes of the rich and poor
• The uprising and Syria's Youth
• Being foreigner, a resident and a journalist in the revolt
• History, blame, responsibility
• Epilogue: A failed revolt? Syria 2014.

In January 2011 President Bashar al-Assad told the Wall Street Journal that Syria was ""stable"" and immune from revolt. In the months that followed, and as regimes fell in Egypt and Tunisia, thousands of Syrians took to the streets calling for freedom, with many dying at the hands of the regime. In Revolt in Syria: Eye-Witness to the Uprising, Stephen Starr delves deep into the lives of Syrians whose destiny has been shaped by the state for almost fifty years. In conversations with people from all strata of Syrian society, Starr draws together and makes sense of perspectives illustrating why.

• Prologue : the inheritor
• Come the mountain people
• The time of the founder
• False dawn
• The boys of Deraa
• The phantoms of Hama
• The truth of the sects
• Sarajevo on the Orontes
• The stalemate
• Dreaming of home : a note on the exiles
• Fragments of a past mourned and dreaded.

In The Syrian Rebellion, Fouad Ajami offers a detailed historical perspective on the current rebellion in Syria. Focusing on the similarities and the differences in skills between former dictator Hafez al-Assad and his successor son, Bashar, Ajami explains how an irresistible force clashed with an immovable object: the regime versus people who conquered fear to challenge a despot of unspeakable cruelty. Although the people at first hoped that Bashar would open up the prison that Syria had become under his father, it was not to be - and rebellion soon followed. Offering a detailed historical perspective, Ajami shows how, for four long decades, the Assad dynasty, the intelligence barons, and the brigade commanders had grown accustomed to a culture of quiescence and silence. But Syrians did not want to be ruled by Bashar's children the way they had been ruled by Bashar and their parents had been by Bashar's father. When the political hurricane known as the Arab Spring hit the region, Bashar al-Assad proclaimed his country's immunity to the troubles. He was wrong. This book tells how a proud people finally came to demand something more than a drab regime of dictatorship and plunder. Fouad Ajami is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and the co-chair of the Herbert and Jane Dwight Working Group on Islamism and the International Order.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The Hope
• Surviving
• Syria is Different
• No, It's Not
• The Regime Responds
• Opposition Mounts
• The International Response
• All In
• Whither Syria?

Amidst the bombings, shootings, political turmoil, and mass exodus in Syria, it's difficult to follow the trajectory of its recent troubled history. One can start in 2000, when Syrian President Bashar al-Assad came to power. David W. Lesch, author of Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad, can trace this path because he knew President Assad personally, perhaps better than anyone else in the West. Lesch's book at first highlights the humanity and promise once shown in President Assad. Later, it is filled with disappointment. He explains that Assad was never meant to rule, and it was only after the untimely death of his brother that the role was thrust upon him. Assad was an ophthalmologist, with a wife and a good family. But it did not take long for the power to corrupt him. Lesch is far from an impartial author. Having known Assad for years, through a series of meetings as a researcher and consultant, Lesch does not hide his regret at the turn of events. In this timely book, the author explores Assad's failed leadership, his transformation from bearer of hope to reactionary tyrant, and his regime's violent response to the uprising of his people in the wake of the Arab Spring. - Publisher.
Examines the failed leadership of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from the perspective of a Middle East scholar who met with Assad between 2004 and 2009, focusing specifically on the administration's response to the Arab Spring.