Syria

by John Morrison, Akbar Ahmed (Introduction)

A history of Syria, focusing on the country's role in the current political climate of the modern Middle East.

147 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was published in 2003 - so it obviously leaves out the last decade of upheaval in the middle East. I did however, find it a concise history of Syria and the region. It's 115 pages long, and covers everything from ancient history to Bashar Assad taking over for his father. All I can say is its a mess. Every established power has meddled in the region for their own self-centered reasons forever, and most distinctly since the 19th century. First France and Britain, and as their power waned with the end of WWII, the meddling fell to the US and Russia. No one seems to have actually done any "good," for the pr imary reason they simply didn't want to. I feel that I have a much better understanding of Bashar Assad's motivations now, he lived in England for a long time and was a practicing Opthamalogist. Now he's an evil dictator. Bit of a life change? While no doubt he's motivated by greed and power, he's also just got to be sick of being pushed around by these large powers, who back him one minute, and then back Israel (or whomever) the next. He can't step down - everyone who has, has wound up dead - I"m sure he figures he might as well go down fighting.
I would recommend skipping the introduction (written by Akbar Ahmed - I found it vague and rambling, and somewhat biased, or at least certainly not fact filled).
I had some questions about the author, due to the intro mostly, and what I was able to find is that he was born in 1929, which makes him at least 88 today (and I did not see that he had died). He was journalist for Reuters and Guardian amongst others. My guess is that when he retired from journalism he started writing fact based histories from his notes and experiences. I liked his straight forward writing style. He did not pull his punches or sugar coat anyone's behaviour. Nor did he make excuses for anyone's bad behaviour. This was only 115 pages, I"m sure there is lots and lots more to the story - but I feel like I have a much greater basis and context for understanding current news because I read this.