Fragile Nation, Shattered Land: The Modern History of Syria

The essential book for understanding modern Syria.

Format: Hardback
Length: 312 pages
Publication date: 12 October 2018
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

The Syrian state, which emerged from the aftermath of World War I, is less than 100 years old. However, it now finds itself in ruins, shattered by a devastating civil war. How did this tragic turn of events unfold? How did the lands that are now Syria survive incorporation with the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century and the trials and vicissitudes of the Sultan's rule for four centuries, only to collapse into civil war in recent years?

Arguably, it was the Ottoman period that laid the fragile foundations of a state that had to endure a turbulent twentieth century under French rule, tentative independence, a brutal and corrupt dictatorship, and eventual disintegration in the twenty-first century.

Across a diverse cast of individuals, rich and poor, James Reilly explores these fractious and formative periods of Ottoman, Egyptian, and French rule, and the ways that these contributed to the contradictions and failings of the rule of the Assad family; and to a civil war that produced the so-called Islamic State.

In charting Syria's history over the last five centuries in their entirety for the first time, Reilly demonstrates the myriad historical, cultural, social, economic, and political factors that bind Syrians together, as well as those that have torn them apart.

Based on primary sources, recent historiography in English, French, and Arabic, and more than 30 years of experience living and working in the region, this is the essential book for understanding modern Syria and the Middle East.

Weight: 588g
Dimension: 230 x 164 x 27 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781784539610