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The Natural History of Aleppo, published first as a single volume in 1756 and as a two-volume edition in 1794, by Scottish physicians to the British Levant Company in Aleppo, Alexander and Patrick Russell, was a landmark in European knowledge of the Arab world. It was the first detailed study by a European of an Arab city, with a description of the topography, the inhabitants and the plant, and animal life in the neighbourhood. Maurits van den Boogert assesses the Russells' botanical and zoological discoveries and analyses the Natural History in the context of medical practices of the time both in Europe and the Ottoman Empire. He reconstructs their stay in Aleppo, their life in Britain, Patrick Russell's experiences in India, and their broader connections, as respected members of the Royal Society, with the world of learning at large.
(1)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.
Syria's descent into civil war has claimed an estimated 100,000 lives. In this hard-hitting book, John McHugo considers why Syria's foundations as a nation have proved so fragile. In an effort to better understand the current upheaval, McHugo examines the history of Syria from the First World War to the present. He takes in the country's thwarted attempts at independence, the French policies that sowed the seeds of internal strife and the fragility of its post-independence democracy. He then turns to recent events: religious and sectarian tensions that have pulled Syria apart, the pressures of the Cold War and the Arab- Israeli dispute and two generations of rule by the Assads. Did Syria ever have a chance? McHugo draws conclusions that are uncomfortable for both Westerners and Arabs alike.
(2)A fresh reassessment of one of the most controversial figures of the her time, this book examines key questions in the study of Domna, her power, her travels and her life.
(1)Based on LiKedoshim Asher Ba'aretz by Hacham David Laniado; Edited and expanded by Rabbi David Sutton; Translated by Isaac Kirzner Known since Biblical times as Aram Soba, the city of Aleppo, Syria was a scholarly and spiritual center for thousands of years. Hated, persecuted, and finally driven out of its ancestral home, this community still lives on in thriving communities in Israel, America, Mexico, and worldwide, including the great Yeshivah Porat Yosef of Jerusalem. Richly illustrated with hundreds of photos, including views of one of the oldest synagogues in the world, the vibrant heritage of Syrian Jewry comes alive in this magnificent history of Aleppo and its sages. This beautiful volume contains biographical information on several centuries of rabbis of Aleppo and Damascus - 600 of them - their ideals and teachings and their beloved pizmonim. Written by a scion of Aleppo who both cherishes and reveres the luminous Judaism of this ancient community
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.
Syria as a Roman Province is a thorough history of Syria during Roman times.
(1)This is the first English translation of the commentary by fourth century A.D. theologian Ephrem the Syrian on the Diatessaron--a Gospel woven from the text of the four Gospels, which predates our earliest evidence of the official Syriac translation of the New Testament. The translation fills a gap in scholarship and will be appreciated by patristics and biblical scholars, hagiographers, and historians of Christianity.
(1)In offering a comprehensive account of Syria's key Jewish communities at an important juncture in their history, this pioneering study - now available in paperback - also throws light on the broader effects of modernization in the Ottoman empire. The Ottoman reforms of the mid-19th 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 Israélite 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. *** 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 for the Ben-Zvi Prize for Research in Oriental Jewry *** Yaron Harel's exceptionally rich and rewarding book marks a major milestone in our understanding of the history of Jews in the Arab lands and, more generally, the changing position of Ottoman religious minorities...No other account of Jewish life in the Ottoman Empire of which I am aware combines archival depth and attention to detail with conceptual breadth and a willingness to challenge existing assumptions in quite this way...a classic in the genre...a work of consummate scholarship and subtle insight. Those with a specialist interest in such phenomena will find it a veritable treasure trove. It will undoubtedly be required reading for anyone interested in the history of the Jews in Muslim lands and for scholars working on the Tanzimat era. But it deserves to find a wider readership than this. For such a richly documented account of the evolution of Syrian Jewry on the threshold of modernity serves as a useful counterpoint for scholars interested in the transformation, emancipation, and acculturation of Jewish communities in other areas of the world. -- Abigail Green, English Historical Review *** A work to be appreciated not only on its own merits, but also as an example of the kind of research that the Jews of the nineteenth-century Middle East deserve...I am impressed by the solid base of primary historical sources in which the research is grounded, as well as by the thoroughness and scope of this professional and serious work, which fills the lacuna that existed until now in modern Jewish historical scholarship. -- Zvi Zohar, Zion (review of the Hebrew edition)
The ‘Syria idea’ emerged in the nineteenth century as a concept of national awakening superseding both Arab nationalism and separatist currents. Looking at nationalist movements, ideas and individuals, this book traces the origin and development of the idea of Syrian nationhood from the perspective of some of its leading pioneers.
Providing a highly original comparative insight into the struggle for independence and sovereignty in post-1850 Syria, it addresses some of the most persistent questions about the development of this nationalism. Chapters by eminent scholars from within and outside of the region offer a comprehensive study of individual Syrian writers and activists caught in a whirlwind of uncertainty, competing ideologies, foreign interference, and political suppression. A valuable addition to the present scholarship on nationalism in the Middle East, this book will be of interest to many professionals as well as to scholars of history, Middle East studies and political science.
Once in a decade comes an account of war that promises to be a classic.
Like Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a defining, journalistic portrait of war in Iraq, Seven Days in Syria bears witness to one of the most brutal, internecine conflicts in recent history. Drawing from years of experience covering Syria for Vanity Fair, Newsweek, and the front pages of the New York Times, award-winning journalist Janine di Giovanni now gives us a masterpiece of war reportage, all told through the perspective of seven ordinary people—among them a doctor, a nun, a musician, and a student. What emerges is an extraordinary picture of the devastating human consequences of armed conflict, one that charts an apocalyptic but at times tender story of life in a jihadist war zone. Recalling celebrated works by Ryszard KapuAcinski, Philip Gourevitch, and Anne Applebaum, Seven Days in Syria, through its unflinching account of a nation on the brink of disintegration, becomes an unforgettable testament to resilience in the face of nihilistic human debasement. 25 illustrations
As a civil war shatters a country and consumes its people, historian Christian C. Sahner offers a poignant account of Syria, where the past profoundly shapes its dreadful present. Among the Ruins blends history, memoir and reportage, drawing on the author's extensive knowledge of Syria in ancient, medieval, and modern times, as well as his experiences living in the Levant on the eve of the war and in the midst of the "Arab Spring". These plotlines converge in a rich narrative of a country in constant flux - a place renewed by the very shifts that, in the near term, are proving so destructive.
Sahner focuses on five themes of interest to anyone intrigued and dismayed by Syria's fragmentation since 2011: the role of Christianity in society; the arrival of Islam; the rise of sectarianism and competing minorities; the emergence of the Ba'ath Party; and the current pitiless civil war.
Among the Ruins is a brisk and illuminating read, an accessible introduction to a country with an enormously rich past and a tragic present. For anyone seeking to understand Syria, this book should be their starting point.
In August of 1897, in the small village of Henna, Syria, eighteen miles from Damascus, Mohammed (Ed) Aryain was born. As far back as he could remember, Ed dreamed of moving to the United States. In the early twentieth century Syria still suffered from high taxation and control under the Ottoman Turks. Ed saw Syrians who had been to America returning home with gold watches and money to purchase land, and he vowed to do the same. Although his parents did not want him to go, eventually they relented and watched fifteen-year-old Ed begin a 120-mile walk to Beirut to board a steamship. He tells of his emotional first view of the Statue of the Liberty and of his traumatic passage through Ellis Island. Joining the network of Syrians who supported themselves by peddling dry goods, Ed traveled across the Great Plains. Later he rented storefronts in wild oil-boom towns in Oklahoma and Texas. Finally he married an American woman and settled in West Texas, living in Littlefield, Sudan, Brownfield, and finally in Seminole, where he operated his own store on the town square until 1952. But even after decades in the United States, a man never forgets his homeland, and after nearly fifty years in America Ed returned briefly to Syria to visit those who remained of the family he had left behind. Eddie and Jameil Aryain, Ed’s two sons, have each written an afterword, providing their perspectives on this unique piece of Americana. A[A] beautifully edited memoir . . . [that] not only puts faces on Syrian emigrants but humanizes them as well” AGreat Plains Quarterly J’Nell Pate is the author of six books, including, most recently America’s Historic Stockyards: Livestock Hotels, and a weekly history column in her local newspaper. She lives in Azle, Texas.
(2)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. 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 Syria, with its numerous sects and religions, was so prone to violence and civil strife. Through his unique access to a country largely cut off from the international media during the unrest, Starr delivers compelling first hand testimony from both those who suffered and benefited most at the hands of the regime. Revolt in Syria details why many Syrians wanted Assad s government to stay as the threat of civil war loomed large, the long-standing gap between the state apparatus and its people and why the country s youth stood up decisively for freedom. Starr also sets out the positions adhered to by the country s minorities and explains why many Syrians believe that enforced regime change might precipitate a region-wide conflict. This revised and updated edition contains a chapter bringing it up to the end of 2013, and examines the experiences of those who have fled the fighting to Turkey and elsewhere.
During the First World War, Cemal Pasha attempted to establish direct control over Syrian and thereby reaffirm Ottoman authority there through various policies of control, including the abolishment of local intermediaries.
Elaborating on these Ottoman policies of control, this book assesses Cemal Pasha’s policies towards different political groups in Syrian society, including; Arabists, Zionists, Christian clergymen and Armenian immigrants. The author then goes on to analyse Pasha’s educational activities, the conscription of Syrians- both Muslim and Christian, and the reconstruction of the major Syrian cities, assessing how these policies contributed to his attempt to create ideal Ottoman citizens. An important addition to existing literature on the social and political history of World War I, and contributing a new understanding of Ottoman Syria, and its transformation into a nation-state, this book will be of interest to students and scholars with an interest in state formation, Politics and History.
The struggle of the nations - Egypt, Syria, and Assyria. 830 Pages.
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