Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution

by Anand Gopal

From Pulitzer and National Book Award finalist Anand Gopal, a mesmerizing and powerful account of six Syrians fighting for a better world, in the tradition of classic works by Philip Gourevitch and Katherine Boo.

In 2011, in a northern Syrian city, a small group of men and women began a movement that overthrew one of the world’s most brutal dictatorships. For the next eighteen months, citizens of Manbij carried out one of the most remarkable experiments in democracy in modern times.

Days of Love and Rage details the powerfully intimate narratives of men and women who led this struggle, and who experience the highs of camaraderie and the lows of a pair of best friends torn apart by political polarization, a mother who stands up to male dominance, a worker who risks everything for the dream of equality.

Anand Gopal immerses you in the world of a single city in the throes of revolution, and lays bare the danger that inequality poses to democracy. But this book transcends the particulars of one terrible conflict to tell the sweeping story of democracy and rising authoritarianism in our times. It is, above all, an account of the best and worst of humanity. Both tragic and inspiring, Days of Love and Rage is a story of our enduring human need for freedom, security, dignity, community, love, and hope.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Politics, Middle East, War, World History, Historical

592 pages, Hardcover

Published March 3, 2026

Reviews

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Super important and harrowing nonfiction book that follows six Syrians fighting for a better world amidst an authoritarian government. Lots of heartbreaking, brutal content (e.g., the descriptions of torture were awful though of course important to document) and also great showcasing of the human fight for freedom and dignity. I thought Anand Gopal took great care to portray the individuals in this book with sensitivity and three-dimensionality. There are unfortunately relevant takeaways given the rise of authoritarianism in different parts of the world generally. Also portrayed the serious costs of activism when fighting against a government that doesn’t view you as human or worthy of any respect.

I lower my rating a bit just because history, or texts that focus on history, can be a bit hard for me to follow if the writing isn’t super crisp. Gopal’s writing was solid though just felt a bit detail-heavy at times. But that estimation of his writing just be how my brain doesn’t digest history or history-focused writing easily. Again, a crucial, devastating book.

[Ondřej Sliš · Rating 5 out of 5]

dal bych víc hvězd. neuvěřitelná věc

[David Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every so often one comes in contact with a piece of human creation that is immediately recognizable as a masterpiece. This is one of those moments. "Days of Love and Rage" chronicles the tortuous journey of the ordinary citizens of Manbij, Syria from 2011 to 2025 as they bravely pursue the right to govern themselves.

First, they risk their lives to remove the Assad regime and establish a democratically-run city state. That successful effort is subsequently weakened by conflict over policy objectives and schisms between local leaders. Frustration and discordance enable ISIS to slowly take over the city and subsume Manbij into its caliphate. Citizens continue to rebel, setting the stage for the removal of ISIS by U.S.-backed forces, albeit at a tremendous loss of life and infrastructure.

This is a saga of humans facing torture, imprisonment, loss of livelihood, loss of family, and death for democracy and the principles of liberalism. Through 2,000 interviews along with text and video records, Gopal gives the reader a front row seat to common people doing unimaginably brave things.

[Murtaza · Rating 5 out of 5]

A tour de force of humanity and instant classic of nonfiction narrative writing.

[John Caleb Grenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this is an exquisitely reported, thoroughly commanding work of journalism that deserves all of our time and respect, I can’t lie and say I was excited to continue listening to this audiobook all the way through.

I learned much about Syria, middle eastern political movements, uprising and rebellion, and I learned about the brave, every-day-sort-of-hero that it takes to make something like these movements happen.

Alas, sometimes, like in some memoir, the details were wrought with such precision as to make me question if some stories were overly embellished to make it read like fiction. Sometimes that works out, but here, it almost felt like it drew the stories out far longer than needed.

Probably, this narrative, human-centered storytelling is the most approachable way to be introduced to much of the complex issues surrounding Syria in the depth Gopal is able to seamlessly describe here, but still—as a book this felt like a lot more like work than interesting reading. I still did the work though, so that speaks volumes about the quality of the book here.

[Bridgo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harrowing and devastating. As a piece of journalism, it’s perhaps the best piece of non fiction I’ve ever read, breaking down the Syrian revolution through the events in Manbij, a city the size of Dunedin located about 90 minutes from Aleppo. Every state backed group acts indefeasibly, there are no winners, and the innocent are constant collateral damage.

[Seth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed everything I learned by reading this, but I wish that the pace was a bit more swift. Got bogged down in some places by how extraordinary the research is and it took me out of the narrative style.

[Megan]

I received this ARC in exchange for a review. I unfortunately DNF’d it. This has nothing to do with the book and everything to do with my reading taste and the amount of information I can digest. I read 426 pages and realized I could not keep up with what was happening and what it means in the greater context of Syrian history.

Some context on me as a reader- I rarely read nonfiction but I enjoy historical fiction and I enjoy memoirs so I thought I would try at Days of Love and Rage. I did not realize it would be 592 pages….

Even with the high page count that I wasn’t mentally prepared for, these stories captured me as they are filled with resilience and a horrific look at the Syrian regimes. Unfortunately, I think some pre-reading may be required on the history of Syria up until the point of the revolutions. I felt a bit lost contextually until we are following the stories of the revolutionaries.

I was unable to follow all of the people we meet in the story. It was difficult to discern who to try to remember as they will come up again, or if they’re involved just in the current sentence.

Personally I would have loved a version of this that’s a bit shorter for my understanding, as I have no previous background in reading or learning about Syria.

Now despite this, my attention was held as the storytelling and writing are so compelling. I think that anyone who is interested should pick this book up and learn as much as they can from it. It’s easy to read and hold an attention span, and I’m sure readers who are comfortable with historical non-fiction would love this writing and story telling.

[Cheyanne Davison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Books that show the true side of what people have gone through, stories that may not have been heard before are heartwrenching. This was peoples real lives and history. There are so many individuals focused on in this book which got very confusing for me to try to remember who was who and what was whose story, but given that ALL of these people connect at some point and everyone’s stories are essential for others stories I understand that this is how the book had to be laid out. It’s always sad to see the terrible things people have gone through. I can only imagine how scary it must have been to be living in Syria at this time. The descriptions were so upsetting because this was peoples lives. And the fact that the effects of all that happened are still there today. This book was very sharp and hard hitting.

I was hoping for a happy ending as i got closer to completing the book. But real life and where we are now does not usually have happy endings.

This book contains so much research and it was all done with so much care. As you read you can feel the effort and importance put on this work to display what happened in a truthful light.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate the audacity of this book's aim to provide a kaleidoscopic view of the syrian revolution through individuals' experiences and lives. The amount of work that went into this history is astounding, and Gopal does an admirable job of rooting the reader in the town and its chaos. However, I couldn't keep all the characters straight, the revolutions and counterrevolutions blurred, and the underlying morality became murkier as time passed. Perhaps that is the point. Gopal tries to salvage hope from the story, but it is a thin reed in the end. ultimately very depressing.

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Six Syrians in the city of Manbji come to life in this extensively reported book on Syrians' efforts to overthrow Assad. At the time, Manjib was the largest liberated city and became the first to form a participatory democracy. The book covers how Syrians achieved liberation from the regime and how they struggled to establish a democracy. Due to inequality and crime during the fledgling democracy, ISIS outsiders were able to take over by promising justice and help for the working class. Eventually many countries, including the US, were backing different groups fighting in Syria and cities like Manbji were bombed until ISIS retreated. 

My favorite parts of this book were learning about these individuals' lives, they were shown in all their complexities. I thought it was interesting to see what brought people into the fight for freedom. I was also very interested in the role women played in the revolution and how of course they were not allowed a voting seat on the revolutionary council. The middle section of this large book was long for me. I got a little lost in all the names and fighting between different revolutionaries after the first liberation. Also, torture, so much torture is detailed.

Coffeepot Roundabout, Book Roundabout, Sailboat Roundabout
positive vs. negative freedoms
velvet elites vs. street
brothers beating or killing their sisters for family honor

"And so, impulsively, people stepped out. They emerged onto the street and joined the procession. Out came Ibrahim, who'd never given a thought to taking part but whose baby brother was somewhere in the swarm, among the marchers. Out came Mina and her husband, walking hand in hand, disappearing into the stream of bodies. Out came housewives and mothers who had never imagined themselves on this stage, or any stage. Out came so many more. And who were they? They were ordinary people, thrust into extraordinary circumstances. They might have watched grainy footage on television and shook their heads, they might have passed homeless hags with crenelated teeth and said, "there but for the grace of God," they might have lined up for work under the girders and cranes of dusty lotes—they might have lived a thousand lives in anonymity, had the regime proved more powerful than the truth. But truth stands on its own, and only lies require scaffolding." p.166

"Was it all worth it? I came to Manbij because I wanted to know: Would it have been better for people never to have stepped onto the rain-slicked streets that April afternoon in 2011 and demanded freedom? Should they have kept quiet, choosing a desolate peace over the horrors that followed? Certainly, tens of thousands would still be alive. Families would be unbroken, cities intact. So many people risked their futures, only to find their world gone to ashes. Looking at everything that's been lost, was it not now perfectly reasonable to give in to despair? and if not, how was one supposed to resist that temptation? This isn't merely a question for Syrians. In an epoch of crumbling institutions and rising oceans, it's one we all confront. To persist in the shadow of great loss demands a certain kind of hopefulness—and that, ultimately, is why I'd come: to investigate the limits and possibilities of hope in a damaged world." p. 458

"Oday's hope, I now understand, was a radical hope: that no matter the disaster in front of him, goodness is possible, even if it is impossible to know how and when it might arrive. Such a hope believes there are fates worse than death. It acts as if another world is possible, while accepting that the world may "close in on you" first. It is a hope that, when transmitted to children, or left behind in books or songs and institutions, can grow and multiply. This is sometimes called a "revolutionary tradition." p. 496

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a nonfiction masterpiece from one of the finest journalists working today.
"Days of Love and Rage" is about the Syrian Civil War in the same way that "Animal Farm" is about cows and ducks. The book is deeply rooted in a certain place and time, to be sure, but its story illuminates deep and universal questions about democracy, human society, freedom, and class struggle. Anand Gopal has travelled the world and witnessed hardship and conflict at its worst. This book is clearly the distillation of the hard wisdom he has gleaned through the experience.
The story itself unfolds with the energy of a great novel. We meet extraordinary people who are rendered with the care and detail of great literature. There is Abdul Os, a striving Kurdish shop owner who becomes a community leader; Hasan Nefi, the poet and revolutionary who suffers in a dungeon; Oday al-Hema, an ambitious and restless young Syrian who can't seem to accept the world as it is; and Mina Saba, a woman oppressed by a world of "honor" who makes the shattering decision to join protests during the Arab Spring.
These stories are intertwined in the city of Manbij, a place that comes alive with the narrative strength of Dickens' London. Manbij is a place of tradition and order, until the arrival of the Syrian revolution. Gopal tells the remarkable story of Manbij over several years as its citizens defy an authoritarian ruler, form a democratic society, and then fall under the power of theocratic tyranny.
The story here is timeless, the story of how people struggle to manifest that thing we call "freedom" through the messy construction of committees, revolutionary councils and civic groups. Gopal's telling of the story is studded with insights that stop you cold, insights that feel not only relevant to our moment, but urgent. The first revolutionary council of Manbij, for example, is run by upper-class professionals who seem immune to the pressing needs of the poor. "As its first act, the body pledged not to tackle (rising) prices but to 'restore the beauty and charm of our streets' by hiring street cleaners," Gopal writes. It sounded like a post-mortem of a recent American presidential election. The events that followed in Majbij were chillingly resonant as well.
The writing here is nothing short of poetic. Describing the pain of families whose loved ones disappeared in the war—whether to prison camps or combat—Gopal writes: "The missing were legion. Their presence, in their perpetual absence, loomed over daily life, like a huge army encampment outside town, just past the hills, beyond the reach of ordinary mortals."
We are lucky to have this monumental work from such an important writer. This is the kind of book that comes along once a decade, at best. It will certainly be read for decades to come.

[Samuel Fishbein · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most ambitious nonfiction books I’ve ever read. It is equal parts interpersonal drama following illicit trysts and broken friendships, political commentary and treatise, and historical recollection through a dizzying array of first hand sources (the methodology is section is fascinating). In some ways it reminded me of the sweeping panorama of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia painted in War and Peace.

I think this book is excels the most as a pure empathy tool. As westerners the tragedy of the Syrian civil war gets lost behind a morass of parties and acronyms and becomes this dense web of sectarian violence we rarely bother to untangle. Gopal doesn’t really attempt to untangle this web through and systemic accounting of the various factions and alliances, but by centering his book on 6 main characters (and a litany of tertiary characters) you feel a deeper sense of understanding of some of the central perspectives in the conflict. For example, one character enables the growth of ISIS in his city and eventually joins the organization. While his story is deeply frustrating it’s also deeply human, and you see that his decisions were not borne out of deeply held religious fundamentalist but instead personal grievances and perceived slights.

Gopal also uses the book to argue that the Syrian conflict is fundamentally one of economic inequality (as many revolutions have been). I think he makes this argument quite successfully and at various points draws broad parallels with the inequality crisis in the west. While I think that’s fertile ground for analysis and thought, these comparisons are so broad and sweeping (ironically, reminding me of some Tolstoy passages i may or may not have began to glaze over) I think Gopal maybe would’ve better served letting the reader draw their own conclusions. Nevertheless, the economic story painted is fascinating. For example Gopal describes how ISIS gained supporters through a message of economic populism and appeal to halcyon days of Islamic caliphates when everyone could keep their doors unlocked. It does not require much adroitness on the part of the reader to draw a comparison to the populism of the MAGA movement.

[Janine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a long book (almost 600 pages) and not for the faint of heart both for its length and the gripping story of a country’s struggle for freedom (not always pretty but authentic in the telling). It’s an authoritative and important read.

Spanning from 2011 to 2024, the book tells the story of the people who rose up in Syria to gain their freedom from the despotic authoritarian government of Bashar Al-Assad. Centered in Manjib, a city of ordinary people, the book is inspiring in its story of those who rose up against Al-Assad and the Islamic revolutionaries. In chronological order, the book tells of all the things these citizens did to counter the awfulness of these governments. Frankly at times I thought I was reading about Minneapolis and ICE actions in this country.

The author tells the story of several residents in Manjib (a list of all can be found the end of the book). He and local researchers conducted over 2000 interviews in developing this portrait. (Be sure to read the methodology sections at the end of the book.). This look into the intimate and painful moments of ordinary people engaged in a fight for freedom is painful at times to read but also eye opening in the importance freedom means to people.

It was very inspiring to read what people did - like elect a council to organize protests. As one reviewer pointed out this act of journalism yields an “important account of an uprising that shook the Middle East.” It also as stated in the book shows how tyranny is a threat to democracy but inequality is what destroys democracy - an incredibly prescient statement in these times.

If you are interested in history, in the Middle East or just learning more about makes people yearn to be free, this book is for you.

I’d like to thank NetGalley and Simon&Schuster for allowing me to read this ARC.

[Josh Pryor · Rating 5 out of 5]

10/10. One of the best books I’ve ever read.

Days of Love and Rage follows several Syrians as they pursue democracy, dignity, and freedom in different ways during the Syrian revolution. It’s an incredible portrait of how revolutions begin, how they unravel, and how even noble causes can consume people.

What makes this book special is that it works on every level. It’s deeply informative, emotionally powerful, and impossible to put down. Gopal explains a complicated conflict through individual lives, which makes everything hit harder than a standard history book ever could.

The people in this book are not presented as heroes or villains. They are complicated, flawed, brave, fearful, hopeful human beings trying to survive history as it crashes down around them.

It also just reads beautifully. There were multiple times I forgot I was reading nonfiction because it has the pacing and intensity of a great novel.

I’ve never read a book that taught me so much, moved me so much, and held my attention so completely at the same time.

An all-time masterpiece.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Compelling narrative nonfiction about a very complex topic. The Syrian civil war has been one of the biggest modern calamites and unfortunately the country is still fractured. Obviously, after Assad's ousting, building up a true democracy with free and fair elections is going to take time, but I fear that other countries are taking advantage of and stoking the upheaval in Syria. What I hope now is that as democracy becomes the norm, smaller ethnic groups will stop facing human rights abuses and crimes against humanity. And that civilians find their lost relatives that Assad locked up in his horrible torture prisons, like Sednaya.

I appreciated hearing this story from the perspective of a revolutionary that wanted the best for his country and people, but didn't always align with the best people (for ISIS that's an understatement) but when on to take accountability for his mistakes and keep fighting for his country's freedom.

[Maggie Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Personally, I love history and learning the different narratives so this book was perfection for me. The stories of the different people showed a comparable world and vision of hope. I appreciated the format of the book, it made it easy to remember who the perspective was from and to realize the connection between them.

This was a great resource to learn about Syria and more current events related to the revolution and happenings. Overall, I would recommend for someone into learning about culture, history, and/or opening your mind to view a different world perspective.

[Bob K · Rating 5 out of 5]

The stories of the atrocities during the Syrian Revolution and the ISIS incursion that followed might keep you up at night. But, it's important to know about them. People gave up everything in their fight against tyranny in their country and were subject to unimaginable horrors. The author does a brilliant job of sharing their experiences and it's presented in stunning, literary detail. Difficult to read but arguably essential to gain an understanding of human nature: how low it can sink and how high it can soar.

[Aarav Balsu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked No Good Men Amongst the Living so much that when I finished it, I immediately read Days of Love and Rage. It's just as well-written, and explores the lives of different people (some of them ringleaders of the youth movements against al-Assad) from the same northern Syrian city of Manbij before the Civil War, during the Revolution of 2011, the ISIS Counterrevolution in 2015/2016, and the American-backed SDF shortly afterwards. Some gristly details of torture in Syria's own gulag archipelago.

Medium-length, finished in one day.

[Katie B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you Simon and Schuster for sending me a free advance copy!

4.5 stars

DAYS OF LOVE AND RAGE is a nonfiction book worth checking out as it covers what’s been going on in Syria for the last couple decades. For many of us in the Western world, we don’t realize the true extent of how Syrians were affected by the dictatorship and the revolution that followed. This book provided great insight as it features 6 Syrians who became involved in the movement. Putting their lives at risk with the hope it would lead to a better Syria, one centered on equality.

A heartbreaking but powerful and important read. Nonfiction writing at its best as you take notice of this country and the plight of its citizens. Highly recommend.

[Sam Sussman · Rating 5 out of 5]

If Proust's subject had been democracy and revolution rather than memory and love, if David Simon made television about the Arab Spring rather than urban life in Baltimore, if Orwell had gone to Syria in the 2010s instead of Spain in the 1930s, the result might be something as spectacular as this book.

[Lottie C · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25⭐️

I thought it was good, but more historical context and backstory would’ve been helpful at the start because I had no idea where we were or why we were there until basically the last 200 pages

[Carrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I’ve ever read.

[Mike Hartnett · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the kind of important book that shows you that people are complicated and sometimes make big decisions for simple reasons.

[Abby Miles · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an undertaking to read and incredibly heavy, but so well crafted. Ties in so many personal narratives of normal Syrians into the overarching story of the revolution.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm so glad that I took my time reading and annotating this. Reading is my favorite way to learn about other places. I've never read anything out of Syria and I was pretty ignorant to everything that happened there. The revolution kicked off as I was just graduating high school and going to college. I missed all of this at the time and I don't remember any reporting on it while I was in school. it's only recently that I began hearing about Syria (2023, maybe?). 

Anand did a great job of making this non-fiction feel like storytelling. A lot of this story is brutal, and I found myself relating heavily to the anger Abdul Hadi, Oday, Abel Os, Mira, and so many others were feeling. it's wild to me how universal some of our issues can be: the elites dominating the "fickle masses", class structure, etc. Even in this country (The US) that sees itself as so superior, the people who are impoverished, struggling, etc are often ignored or demonized. I felt myself loving these complete strangers and feeling understood. I found myself angry for them in what they were going through at the hands of the regime and outside forces. I found myself completely understanding how many fell into ISIS' grasp and feeling the betrayal when ISIS finally revealed it's real goals.

Now, America...I'm aware of our imperial history (and present). I found myself so disappointed, but not at all surprised about the indifference, the casual cruelty, the brutal drone bombings at the command of a president I admired. The older I get, the more I learn and the angrier I become.

What this book ultimately taught me was what being in community means. Oday...his hope is the same hope that I feel. Mira's distrust is also the same as mine.

I don't need to relate to these people in order to care about them and their plight. It just matters to me that they are human. Anand did a great job of capturing these people. The work that went into this (nearly a decade and thousands of interviews)...gaining trusts, navigating some dangerous situations, maintaining integrity, amassing a team of the people involved in the revolution to help him tell their stories, gathering the social media posts (this was one of the first revolutions to be posted on social media) ...the effort showed.

My only con was length, but that wasn't enough to take off any stars.

Thank you to Simon and Schuster + NetGalley for the eARC. This review is late as hell because it took me two weeks to get through this. It was all of the annotating and studying I did because of this story.

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is something about great books which lead me to sound truly pretentious in my reviews. I want to avoid cliches like that the book is powerful, astonishing, or important. However, I run into books like Days of Love and Rage by Anand Gopal which defy me not to call it all these things. Gopal has written something that cannot be done by every author. It is painstakingly researched, beautifully written, but somehow very grounded. It is dense, challenging, but as close to a page turner as something like this could be. It is, in a word, a masterpiece.

The narrative follows various characters in the city of Manbij, Syria during the Syrian Civil War. Gopal keeps his story focused on the street level of the war as much as possible. While Gopal will give the reader an idea of what is happening around Syria, Manbij is where the vast majority of the events take place. He draws the reader in by introducing his characters in mundane ways. There is the boy who falls in love with the girl down the street. There is the poet who is just finding his voice or the woman who doesn't know she'll ever be allowed to have one. The opening of the book truly feels like the beginning of a novel. Then, of course, the resistance begins and things are going to get messy, violent, and unclear.

Gopal's tone throughout the narrative is one of journalistic objectivity. You can feel his emotion by what he chooses to present to the reader. He is clearly pulling for his subjects to be the best version of themselves, but he will not hide their sometimes significant shortcomings, either. One man, in particular, ranges from righteous revolutionary, to ISIS criminal, to outcast. Throughout, you live and die with these people as they just try to define what freedom is and how to keep it once you have it.

No one is ever going to ask me to hand out awards for writing. However, if this book doesn't win every single thing it is up for, then they don't matter anyway.

(This book was provided as a review copy by Simon & Schuster.)