Reaching Across the Waters (Directions in Development)

Reaching Across the Waters (Directions in Development)
Bridget Brown (Author), Ashok Subramanian (Author), Aaron Wolf (Author)

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Syria

This volume reviews the experience of cooperation in five international river basins, focusing on the perceptions of risks and opportunities by decision makers in countries responding to a specific prospect of cooperation. For each basin, the analysis centered on “tipping points,” or periods in time when policymakers in the countries involved were faced with a critical decision concerning water cooperation. This study was inspired, in part, by the intensified involvement of the World Bank and development partners in shared international waters, resulting in a growing interest to better understand the political economy surrounding regional cooperation deals over water. While the associated economic benefits and costs of cooperation are generally well analyzed, the perceptions of decision makers regarding political risks and opportunities have been much less explored. Responding to this knowledge gap, this study looked at the political dimension of cooperation over international waters, beginning with perceived risks. Five categories of perceived risk were analyzed: 1) Capacity and Knowledge; 2) Accountability and Voice; 3) Sovereignty and Autonomy; 4) Equity and Access; and 5) Stability and Support. All five categories of risk were found to exert a significant influence on cooperation decisions, indicating that perceived risks were a core consideration for decision makers in countries. Furthermore, cooperation was more likely when risks were reduced, or opportunities created for political gains. This has important implications for development partners’ engagement in shared international waters. Partners are advised to conduct risk assessments in consultation with countries involved, and devise plans for reducing perceived risks. Suggested measures for partner action are also included. In addition to the discussions of risk and enhancing the potential for cooperation, this volume offers some important lessons on supporting cooperation. First, cooperation can take several years of planning and confidence building, often before negotiations even begin. Thus, a long-term time commitment by partners is likely required. Finally, deals are dynamic. Once a deal is reached, the situation does not become static: deals can be fragile and fall apart or evolve and grow into stronger and more sustainable arrangements. Accordingly, periodic assessments are needed to reflect changing realities and as inputs for a revised strategy.

• Rank: #109981 in eBooks
• Published on: 2012-06-29
• Released on: 2012-06-29
• Format: Kindle eBook

History of the Jews in Egypt and Syria under the rule of the Mamluks / by E. Strauss-Ashtor. Volume 3: Geniza documents. [Language: Hebrew]

History of the Jews in Egypt and Syria under the rule of the Mamluks / by E. Strauss-Ashtor. Volume 3: Geniza documents. [Language: Hebrew]
Eliyahu (1914-1984) Ashtor (Author)



Syria

• Rank: #113256 in Books
• Published on: 1970
• Binding: Hardcover

Yom Kippur War: Syrians at the Border: Strategies-Tactics-Battles, Israel's Northern Command-1973 (Military History)

Yom Kippur War: Syrians at the Border: Strategies-Tactics-Battles, Israel's Northern Command-1973 (Military History)
Dani Asher (Author), Yitzhak Hofi (Editor), Uri Simchoni (Editor), Avraham Bar David (Editor), Hagai Mann (Editor), History (Illustrator), Military (Preface), War (Preface)

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Syria

Saturday, 1973, the Day of Atonement – the most holy day of the year for the Jewish people – became the Harbinger of Doom for the Congregations of Israel. At 13:55 hours that day rolling Syrian cannon thunder was heard all along the front on the Golan Heights, and dense, black smoke shrouded it completely.

Many accounts of the Yom Kippur War have been written. But this is the first behind-the-scenes look at the Northern Command preparations for war during that fateful summer, when the Syrian army in the north, together with the Egyptian army in the south, coordinated a blitzkrieg offensive against Israel. The book offers fresh insight into the pre-war debate that raged between the Northern Command and the Intelligence Branch that believed Syria was not looking for war. For the first time, the reader will be privy to the decision-making details that threatened to overpower the IDF Command. The Generals, who were in command, describe in their own words the pivotal battles that changed the course of the war, as well as the disastrous effects of the “hindsight evaluation” after the war was won reverberated throughout the corridors of power.
The four contributors of this book were assisted by a team of researchers and other army commanders, under the direction and coordination of Military Historian, Brig. Gen. (Res.) Dr Dani Asher.

Contributors
Major General (res.) Yitzhak Hofi, “Haka”, the Northern Commander in Chief, Maj. Gen. (res.) Uri Simchoni, Head of Command Operations, Brig. Gen. (res.) Avraham Bar David, Head of Artillery, and Col. (res.) Hagai Mann, the command’s Intelligence officer, have combined their knowledge of the day-to-day events to recount the preparations and management of the war, its success and failures, and its repercussions that resonate even today.

• Rank: #179965 in eBooks
• Published on: 2014-02-22
• Released on: 2014-02-22
• Format: Kindle eBook

SALADIN: Hero of Islam

SALADIN: Hero of Islam
Geoffrey Hindley (Author)
(9)

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Syria

The extraordinary character and career of Saladin are the keys to understanding the Battle of Hattin, the fall of Jerusalem and the failure of the Third Crusade. He united warring Muslim lands, reconquered the bulk of Crusader states and faced the Richard the Lion Heart, king of England, in one of the most famous confrontations in medieval warfare. Geoffrey Hindley's sympathetic and highly readable study of the life and times of this remarkable, many-sided man, who dominated the Middle East in his day, gives a fascinating insight into his achievements and into the Muslim world of his contemporaries.

REVIEWS

"...Highly recommended for library collections and biographical reading lists."Midwest Book Review 8/07

"...a valuable biography of one of the most attractive figures in Medieval history, a rare example of a leader who was respected on both sides of the religious divide in the Holy Land and one whose reputation has deservedly survived intact across intervening centuries." History of War, 4/2010

• Rank: #351476 in Books
• Brand: Pen and Sword
• Published on: 2010-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .70" h x 6.10" w x 9.10" l, .85 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Syrianus: On Aristotle Metaphysics 13-14 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)

Syrianus: On Aristotle Metaphysics 13-14 (Ancient Commentators on Aristotle)
Syrianus (Author), Dominic J. O'Meara (Translator), John Dillon (Translator)

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Syria

Until the launch of this series in 1985, the 15,000 volumes of the ancient Greek commentators on Aristotle, written mainly between 200 and 600 AD, constituted the largest corpus of extant Greek philosophical writings not translated into English or other European languages.
Syrianus, originally from Alexandria, moved to Athens and became the head of the Academy there after the death of Plutarch of Athens. Syrianus attacked Aristotle in his commentary on Books 13 and 14 of the Metaphysics, just as his pupil Proclus was to do later in his commentaries on Plato. This is because in Metaphysics 13-14, Aristotle himself was being thoroughly polemical towards Platonism, in particular against the Academic doctrine of Form-numbers and the whole concept of separable number. In reply, Syrianus gives an account of mathematical number and of geometrical entities, and of how all of these are processed in the mind, which was to influence Proclus and all subsequent Neoplatonists.

• Rank: #696774 in Books
• Published on: 2014-04-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .0 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

The Ottoman Kitchen: Modern Recipes from Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, Lebanon, and Syria

The Ottoman Kitchen: Modern Recipes from Turkey, Greece, the Balkans, Lebanon, and Syria
Sarah Woodward (Author), Jan Baldwin (Photographer)
(1)

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Syria

One of the earliest exponents of fusion cooking, the Ottomans elaborated and refined the culinary traditions of the entire Eastern Mediterranean region to create one of the world's greatest, and most eclectic, cuisines. The Ottoman Kitchen explores the culinary traditions of the region, the vast Ottoman Empire, which at the height of its glory spread East-West from Baghdad to Tripoli and North-South from Budapest to Cairo, and offers a collection of practical recipes for up-to-date versions of classic dishes. Interwoven with illuminating tales of history and culture, over 100 photographs are featured-stunning recipe pictures and evocative location shots of modern-day life.

• Rank: #77591 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 144 pages

The Doctor,The Eye Doctor and Me: Analogies and Parallels Between The World of Doctor Who and the Syrian Conflict

The Doctor,The Eye Doctor and Me: Analogies and Parallels Between The World of Doctor Who and the Syrian Conflict
Aboud Dandachi (Author)

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Syria

"Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in" - The Doctor's Promise

"Assad or we burn the country" - The Eye Doctor's Promise

The Doctor, the lead character in the BBC’s phenomenally successful TV show “Doctor Who”; a time-traveling alien hundreds of years old. A compassionate person with the curiosity of a child and the wisdom of the ages.

The Eye Doctor, Bashar Assad of Syria, whose ophthalmology studies in the UK were interrupted to enable him to inherit the presidency of a country from his father.

"The Doctor, the Eye Doctor and Me" is the world of Doctor Who and the Syrian conflict as seen through the eyes of Aboud Dandachi, an activist and refugee from the city of Homs. The book attempts to explain the events of the Syrian conflict by exploring the remarkable analogies, parallels and contrasts between the war and the adventures of the Eleventh Doctor. Among the episodes the book draws on include;

The Impossible Astronaut/The Day of the Moon, the day the Doctor fought his own revolution.

The Doctor's Wife, the day the Doctor lost his home and himself became a displaced person.

A Good Man Goes to War, as opposed to how a "bad man" implements "reforms".
Journey to the Center of the TARDIS, when the Doctor proved truly capable of Machiavellian manipulations that would put dictators to shame.

Asylum of the Daleks, and the narratives individuals create and live by in order to endure the burdens of war.

The Night of the Doctor, what happens when both sides in a conflict become as bad as the other.

The Time of the Doctor, the most important factor and lesson in war, any war, as exemplified by the Doctor's hundreds year battle to protect one town from the combined forces of the universe.

The book also examines the contrasting languages used by the Doctor and the Eye Doctor, and how the year 2013 was a milestone for both Doctor Who and Syria's political history.

Written by Aboud Dandachi, a Syrian activist who over the course of the war would live in both opposition and loyalist areas, and witness first hand the effects of the conflict on both communities, "The Doctor, the Eye Doctor and Me" is a unique interpretation of Doctor Who as it marked its fiftieth anniversary, and a first-hand account of the most devastating period in Syria's modern history.

It is both the story of one person's journey through the different stages of the Syrian conflict, and the lessons and insights into the meaning of the events of that journey as gleaned from parallels and analogies with one of the century's most remarkable cultural achievements.

• Rank: #170330 in eBooks
• Published on: 2014-02-17
• Released on: 2014-02-17
• Format: Kindle eBook

Syria and Egypt: From the Tell el Amarna Letters (Cambridge Library Collection - Egyptology)

Syria and Egypt: From the Tell el Amarna Letters (Cambridge Library Collection - Egyptology)
William Matthew Flinders Petrie (Author)

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Syria

A pioneering Egyptologist, Sir William Matthew Flinders Petrie (1853-1942) excavated over fifty sites and trained a generation of archaeologists. In the early 1890s, he carried out significant work at Tell el-Amarna, the site of the ancient capital of Akhetaten. The illustrated 1894 excavation report that he co-authored has also been reissued in this series, along with many of his other publications. Petrie played a notable part in the preservation of a number of cuneiform tablets that became known collectively as the Tell el-Amarna letters. In this 1898 work, he presents summaries of the most important documents. They offer insights into war, peace and diplomacy in the Near East during the reigns of Amenhotep III and Akhenaten in the fourteenth century BCE. Informative notes on individuals and places mentioned in the letters help set them in context, while the methods used to interpret them are also elucidated.

• Rank: #2359482 in Books
• Published on: 2013-09-05
• Released on: 2014-02-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .46" h x 5.51" w x 8.50" l, .58 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 202 pages

The Asian mystery illustrated in the history, religion, and present state of the Ansaireeh or Nusairis of Syria

The Asian mystery illustrated in the history, religion, and present state of the Ansaireeh or Nusairis of Syria
Samuel Lyde (Author)

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Syria

The Asian mystery illustrated in the history, religion, and present state of the Ansaireeh or Nusairis of Syria. 350 Pages.

• Rank: #344680 in eBooks
• Published on: 2014-01-25
• Released on: 2014-01-25
• Format: Kindle eBook

American Missions in Syria

American Missions in Syria
Abu-Ghaz (Author)

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Syria

• Rank: #148099 in Books
• Published on: 1990-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 95 pages

The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels

The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels
Janet Soskice (Author)
(52)

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Syria

In 1892, two sisters, identical twins from Scotland, made one of one of most important scriptural discoveries of modern times. Combing the library of St. Catherine’s Monastery at Mount Sinai, they found a neglected palimpsest: beneath an unpreposessing life of female saints, they detected what remains to this day among the earliest known copies of the Gospels, a version in ancient Syriac , the language spoken by Jesus. The Sisters of Sinai is the enthralling account of how two ladies in middle age and without university degrees uncovered and translated this text, bringing a great biblical treasure to world attention.

Janet Soskice takes us, via the lives of Agnes and Margaret Smith, on a quintessentially Victorian adventure. It is partly a physical journey: when Westerners generally feared to tread in the region, the sisters Smith traversed the Middle East, sleeping in tents, enduring temperamental camels and unscrupulous dragomen, and facing uncertain welcome from monks deceived by earlier travellers. It is also a journey of the mind: in an era when religious faith was under attack, when new discoveries in science and archaeology were rewriting the accepted understanding of the Bible’s origins as well as those of humankind, a great contribution to knowledge was made by two whose only natural advantage was an astonishing gift for languages, modern as well as classical. Finally, and most movingly, it is a progress of the human spirit. Unwilling to let their lack of formal training or the disdain and jealousy of male scholars stand in their way, Agnes and Margaret became renowned scriptural authorities, in joyful pursuit of their lifelong passions for adventure and learning. Here, rousingly recounted, is the story of two unlikely and unsung heroines of the continuing effort to discover the Bible as originally written.

• Rank: #795717 in Books
• Brand: Brand: Vintage
• Published on: 2009-08-18
• Released on: 2009-08-18
• Format: Deckle Edge
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.37" h x 6.42" w x 1.28" l, 1.50 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

• Used Book in Good Condition

Temples and Sanctuaries in the Roman East: Religious Architecture in Syria, Iudaea/Palaestina and Provincia Arabia

Temples and Sanctuaries in the Roman East: Religious Architecture in Syria, Iudaea/Palaestina and Provincia Arabia
Arthur Segal (Author)

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Syria

This lavishly illustrated volume presents a comprehensive architectural study of 87 individual temples and sanctuaries built in the Roman East between the end of the 1st century BCE and the end of the 3rd century CE, within a broad region encompassing the modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan. Religious architecture gave faithful expression to the complexity of the Roman East and to its multiplicity of traditions pertaining to ethnic and religious aspects as well as to the powerful influence of Imperial Rome. The source of this power lay in the uniformity of the architectural language, the inventory of forms, the choice of styles and the spatial layout of the buildings. Thus, while temples have an eclectic character, there is an underlying unity of form comprising the podium, the stairway between the terminating walls (antae) and the columns along the entrance front - in other words, the axiality, frontality and symmetry of the temple as viewed from outside. The temples and sanctuaries studied in this volume demonstrate individual nuances of plan, spatial design, location in the sanctuary and interrelations with the immediate vicinity but can be divided into two main categories: Vitruvian temples (derived from Hellenistic-Roman architecture) and Non-Vitruvian temples (those with plans and spatial designs that cannot be analysed according to architectural criteria such as those defined by Vitruvius). The individual descriptions presented focus solely upon the analysis of the external and internal space of the temples of all types and do not involve any cultural or ethnic discussion.

• Rank: #422418 in Books
• Published on: 2013-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .0 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

The Kurds of Syria: Political Parties and Identity in the Middle East (Library of Modern Middle East Studies)

The Kurds of Syria: Political Parties and Identity in the Middle East (Library of Modern Middle East Studies)
Harriet Allsopp (Author)

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Syria

Since the beginning of 2011, the political situation in Syria has consistently found itself at the top of news broadcasts, newspaper headlines and the agendas of politicians. Little-known, however, has been the struggle of the Kurds in Syria to have their voice heard on the political stage and to have equitable access to both economic and political resources. Here, Harriet Allsopp examines contemporary Kurdish politics in Syria, concentrating on the Syrian-Kurdish political parties which operate illegally in the country. It is these parties which, despite state sanctions, have attempted to promote their political agendas and to bring about change for the approximately 3 million Kurds that currently reside in Syria. The Kurds of Syria explores the fundamental issues of minority identity and the concept of being 'stateless' in a turbulent region, as well as the organization of political parties in Syria, making it vital for all those researching the politics of the modern Middle East.

• Rank: #856483 in Books
• Published on: 2014-03-27
• Released on: 2014-03-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect

Inside Syria: The Backstory of Their Civil War and What the World Can Expect
Reese Erlich (Author), Noam Chomsky (Foreword)

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Syria

Based on first-hand reporting from Syria and Washington, journalist Reese Erlich unravels the complex dynamics underlying the Syrian civil war. Through vivid on-the-ground accounts and interviews with both rebel leaders and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Erlich gives the reader a better understanding of this momentous power struggle and why it matters.

Through his many contacts inside Syria, the author reveals who is supporting Assad and why; he describes the agendas of the rebel factions; and he depicts in stark terms the dire plight of many ordinary Syrian people caught in the cross-fire. The book also provides insights into the role of the Kurds, the continuing influence of Iran, and finally the twisted US policy toward Syria, which seems interested only in protecting US regional interests.

As Erlich shows, current events in Syria make little sense to outsiders lacking background information on key historic figures who impacted the country in the previous century. Several chapters are devoted to these influential leaders--including T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia), journalist Lowell Thomas, Muslim brotherhood founder Hassan al Banna, Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein, and Hafez al-Assad.  

Disturbing and enlightening at once, this timely book shows you not only what is happening inside Syria but why it is so important for the Middle East, the US, and the world.

• Rank: #692960 in Books
• Published on: 2014-10-07
• Released on: 2014-10-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, 1.25 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 287 pages

Syrian Jewry in Transition, 1840-1880 (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)

Syrian Jewry in Transition, 1840-1880 (Littman Library of Jewish Civilization)
Yaron Harel (Author), Dena Ordan (Translator)
(1)

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Syria

In offering a comprehensive account of Syria's key Jewish communities at an important juncture in their history, this pioneering study also throws light on the broader effects of modernization in the Ottoman empire. The Ottoman reforms of the mid-nineteenth century accelerated the process of opening up Syria to European travellers and traders and gave Syria's Jews access to European Jewish communities. The resulting influx of Western ideas led to a decline in the traditional economy, with serious consequences for the Jewish occupational structure. It also allowed for the introduction of Western education, through schools run by the Alliance Israelite Universelle, influenced the structure and the administration of Jewish society in Syria, and changed the balance of the relationship between Muslims, Christians, and Jews. Initially, Syria's Jewish communities flourished economically and politically in these new circumstances, but there was increasing recognition that a better future lay overseas. After the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the bankruptcy of the Ottoman empire in 1875, and the suspension of the Ottoman constitution in 1878, this feeling intensified. A process of decline set in that ultimately culminated in large-scale Jewish emigration, first to Egypt and then to the West. From that point on, the future for Syrian Jews lay in the West, not the East. Detailed and compelling, this book covers Jewish community life, the legal status of Jews in Syria, their relationship with their Muslim and Christian neighbors, and their links with the West. It draws on a wide range of archival material in six languages, including Jewish, Christian Arab, and Muslim Arab sources, Ottoman and European documents, consular reports, travel accounts, and reports from the contemporary press and by emissaries to Syria of the Alliance Israelite Universelle. Rabbinic sources, including the archive of the chief rabbinate in Istanbul, are shown to be particularly important in opening a window onto Syrian Jewish life and concerns. Together these sources bring to light an enormous amount of material and provide a broad, multifaceted perspective on the Syrian Jewish community. -- The Hebrew edition of this book was the winner of the Ben Zvi Award for Research in Oriental Jewry in 2004. 'For the first time in the historiography of the Jews of Muslim countries we are presented with a rich picture, well written and riveting, of the history of important Jewish communities in the period of the Tanzimat.' (from the award citation). This book has also been selected as a finalist for the 2010 National Jewish Book Awards in the catagory of Writing Based on Archival Material. 'Extremely well researched and detailed and will be an invaluable resource for those interested in Syrian Jewry, late Ottoman Syria, and Middle Eastern history more generally.' Ari Ariel, Syrian Studies Association Newsletter, vol. XVI: 1, Spring 2011

• Rank: #132115 in Books
• Published on: 2010-02-17
• Original language: Hebrew
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.09" h x 5.91" w x .0" l, 1.40 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 317 pages

Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Conjunctions of Religion and Power in the Medieval Past)

Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Conjunctions of Religion and Power in the Medieval Past)
Marina Rustow (Author)

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Syria

In a book with a bold new view of medieval Jewish history, written in a style accessible to nonspecialists and students as well as to scholars in the field, Marina Rustow changes our understanding of the origins and nature of heresy itself. Scholars have long believed that the Rabbanites and Qaraites, the two major Jewish groups under Islamic rule, split decisively in the tenth century and from that time forward the minority Qaraites were deemed a heretical sect. Qaraites affirmed a right to decide matters of Jewish law free from centuries of rabbinic interpretation; the Rabbanites, in turn, claimed an unbroken chain of scholarly tradition. Rustow draws heavily on the Cairo Geniza, a repository of papers found in a Rabbanite synagogue, to show that despite the often fierce arguments between the groups, they depended on each other for political and financial support and cooperated in both public and private life. This evidence of remarkable interchange leads Rustow to the conclusion that the accusation of heresy appeared sporadically, in specific contexts, and that the history of permanent schism was the invention of polemicists on both sides. Power shifted back and forth fluidly across what later commentators, particularly those invested in the rabbinic claim to exclusive authority, deemed to have been sharply drawn boundaries. Heresy and the Politics of Community paints a portrait of a more flexible medieval Eastern Mediterranean world than has previously been imagined and demonstrates a new understanding of the historical meanings of charges of heresy against communities of faith. Historians of premodern societies will find that, in her fresh approach to medieval Jewish and Islamic culture, Rustow illuminates a major issue in the history of religions.

• Rank: #1014613 in Books
• Published on: 2008-07-17
• Released on: 2008-07-17
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.49" h x 7.01" w x 1.38" l, 1.96 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 472 pages

Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism: The Politics of Damascus 1860-1920 (Cambridge Middle East Library)

Urban Notables and Arab Nationalism: The Politics of Damascus 1860-1920 (Cambridge Middle East Library)
Philip S. Khoury (Author)

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Syria

No idea has captured the imagination or expressed the hopes of Arabs in the twentieth century as has Arab nationalism, and perhaps no subject has received so much attention from historians of the Middle East. But, while many historians have explored its intellectual sources, few have considered the social and political environment in which Arab nationalism evolved as an ideological movement. This study attempts to correct the imbalance and, in the process, provides a fascinating interpretation of the rise of the ideology of nationalism within the Arab world. The book focuses on the social and political life of the great notable families of Ottoman Damascus, who, before World War I, played a crucial part in translating the idea into political action. Dr Khoury explains how such long-term factors as the Ottoman reformation, European economic expansion and agrarian commercialization in Syria encouraged rival and socially differentiated networks of influential families to merge into a cohesive upper class. Under the umbrella of a reinvigorated Ottoman central authority, this class of landowners and bureaucrats produced a new urban leadership, which dominated local politics after 1860.

• Rank: #101272 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 8.35" h x 6.57" w x .43" l, .59 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 168 pages

The Battleground: Syria and Palestine the Seedplot of Religion

The Battleground: Syria and Palestine the Seedplot of Religion
Hilaire Belloc (Author)
(1)

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Syria

In this religious-biblical oriented history, Belloc provides a full and fair treatment of the ancient Jews and other Middle Eastern cultures and their impact in history, and in today's world. He affirms a special divine design in the story of Syria and particularly of Israel, reaching a climax in the event of the Crucifixion of Christ. His famous motto, "Europe is the Faith, the Faith is Europe" has been interpreted as a form of religious ethnocentrism. But he was making the point that what we regard as the greatest cultural, political and artistic achievements of Western civilization stem from the old creed. Without the one, the other would not exist.

• Rank: #165447 in Books
• Published on: 2008-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: 9.25" h x 6.50" w x .0" l, 1.00 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 291 pages

The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire

The Land of the Elephant Kings: Space, Territory, and Ideology in the Seleucid Empire
Paul J. Kosmin (Author)

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Syria

The Seleucid Empire (311-64 BCE) was unlike anything the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds had seen. Stretching from present-day Bulgaria to Tajikistan--the bulk of Alexander the Great's Asian conquests--the kingdom encompassed a territory of remarkable ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity; yet it did not include Macedonia, the ancestral homeland of the dynasty. The Land of the Elephant Kings investigates how the Seleucid kings, ruling over lands to which they had no historic claim, attempted to transform this territory into a coherent and meaningful space.

Based on recent archaeological evidence and ancient primary sources, Paul J. Kosmin's multidisciplinary approach treats the Seleucid Empire not as a mosaic of regions but as a land unified in imperial ideology and articulated by spatial practices. Kosmin uncovers how Seleucid geographers and ethnographers worked to naturalize the kingdom's borders with India and Central Asia in ways that shaped Roman and later medieval understandings of "the East." In the West, Seleucid rulers turned their backs on Macedonia, shifting their sense of homeland to Syria. By mapping the Seleucid kings' travels and studying the cities they founded--an ambitious colonial policy that has influenced the Near East to this day--Kosmin shows how the empire's territorial identity was constructed on the ground. In the empire's final century, with enemies pressing harder and central power disintegrating, we see that the very modes by which Seleucid territory had been formed determined the way in which it fell apart.

• Rank: #1930762 in Books
• Published on: 2014-06-23
• Released on: 2014-06-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .0" h x .0" w x .0" l, .0 pounds
• Binding: Hardcover
• 380 pages