That was fascinating, thank you. Do you have any recommended reading on Syria generally to understand the different groups and background to the current conflict?
Hi Jamie, there is a ton of sources for Syria and its civil war. I would recommend checking out this thread made by a friend of mine on X for some great references: https://x.com/moesahily/status/1863311086373462187
Personally, I don't even know where to begin. Patrick Seale's work is generally seen as some of the best for learning about the Assad family and how they have ruled Syria since coming to power in 1970. Charles Lister also has some really in depth work on the Islamist movement in the country and the Nusra Front. I will write an explainer post in the coming days regarding the lead-up to the Syrian Civil War and what has happened since 2011. I'm glad you enjoyed my post!
Thanks David - I appreciate the response. For the less tech-savvy, is there any book that you might also recommend? I have just finished a couple of fascinating books on the Middle East (The Kingdom & The Land Between the Rivers on Saudi and Iraq respectively) and would love to get some similar background on Syria to understand some of the historical background that you are discussing in these posts. Thank you again for the insight - I just stumbled across your Substack today and have read through 90% of your posts in one big effort !
I'm so glad to hear that my writing has been informative! I can be a bit scatter-brained, but hopefully it is apparent that the quality of my work has steadily improved since I started this blog! Some books I have read more recently that I have found quite informative would be The Syrian Revolution by Yasser Munif and Rojava by Thomas Schmidinger (focusing on Syria's Kurdish community). Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East by Patrick Seale is also quite good. For shorter articles, this piece (https://aymennjawad.org/11130/syria-demography) by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi and Oskar Svadkovsky is quite good for why the Syrian Revolution broke out in the first place. This report (https://www.newamerica.org/future-security/reports/tweet-damocles/) by Nate Rosenblatt and David Kilcullen is also very informative regarding how foreign intervention shaped the rebel movement. I hope these are useful to you, thanks again!
That was fascinating, thank you. Do you have any recommended reading on Syria generally to understand the different groups and background to the current conflict?
Hi Jamie, there is a ton of sources for Syria and its civil war. I would recommend checking out this thread made by a friend of mine on X for some great references: https://x.com/moesahily/status/1863311086373462187
Personally, I don't even know where to begin. Patrick Seale's work is generally seen as some of the best for learning about the Assad family and how they have ruled Syria since coming to power in 1970. Charles Lister also has some really in depth work on the Islamist movement in the country and the Nusra Front. I will write an explainer post in the coming days regarding the lead-up to the Syrian Civil War and what has happened since 2011. I'm glad you enjoyed my post!
Thanks David - I appreciate the response. For the less tech-savvy, is there any book that you might also recommend? I have just finished a couple of fascinating books on the Middle East (The Kingdom & The Land Between the Rivers on Saudi and Iraq respectively) and would love to get some similar background on Syria to understand some of the historical background that you are discussing in these posts. Thank you again for the insight - I just stumbled across your Substack today and have read through 90% of your posts in one big effort !
I'm so glad to hear that my writing has been informative! I can be a bit scatter-brained, but hopefully it is apparent that the quality of my work has steadily improved since I started this blog! Some books I have read more recently that I have found quite informative would be The Syrian Revolution by Yasser Munif and Rojava by Thomas Schmidinger (focusing on Syria's Kurdish community). Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East by Patrick Seale is also quite good. For shorter articles, this piece (https://aymennjawad.org/11130/syria-demography) by Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi and Oskar Svadkovsky is quite good for why the Syrian Revolution broke out in the first place. This report (https://www.newamerica.org/future-security/reports/tweet-damocles/) by Nate Rosenblatt and David Kilcullen is also very informative regarding how foreign intervention shaped the rebel movement. I hope these are useful to you, thanks again!