In this book, the distinguished scholar Hanna Batatu presents a comprehensive analysis of the recent social, economic, and political evolution of Syria's peasantry, the segment of society from which the current holders of political power stem. Batatu focuses mainly on the twentieth century and, in particular, on the Ba`th movement, the structures of power after the military coup d'état of 1963, and the era of îvfiz al-Asad, Syria's first ruler of peasant extraction. Without seeking to prove any single theory about Syrian life, he offers a uniquely rich and detailed account of how power was transferred from one demographic group to another and how that power is maintained today. Batatu begins by examining social differences among Syria's peasants and the evolution of their mode of life and economic circumstances. He then scrutinizes the peasants' forms of consciousness, organization, and behavior in Ottoman and Mandate times and prior to the Ba`thists' rise to power. He explores the rural aspects of Ba`thism and shows that it was not a single force but a plurality of interrelated groups--prominent among them the descendants of the lesser rural notables--with different social goals and mental horizons. The book also provides a perceptive account of President Asad, his personality and conduct, and the characteristics and power structures of his regime. Batatu draws throughout on a wide range of socioeconomic and biographical information and on personal interviews with Syrian peasants and political leaders, offering invaluable insights into the complexities of a country and a regime that have long been poorly understood by outsiders.

The Description for this book, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq: A Study of Iraq's Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of Its Communists, Ba'thists, and Free Officers, will be forthcoming.

A renowned expert answers the question many are asking: How dangerous is Syria?

Drawing on previously unused primary sources, this book paints an intimate and vivid portrait of Palestinian society on the eve of modernity. Through the voices of merchants, peasants, and Ottoman officials, Beshara Doumani offers a major revision of standard interpretations of Ottoman history by investigating the ways in which urban-rural dynamics in a provincial setting appropriated and gave meaning to the larger forces of Ottoman rule and European economic expansion. He traces the relationship between culture, politics, and economic change by looking at how merchant families constructed trade networks and cultivated political power, and by showing how peasants defined their identity and formulated their notions of justice and political authority. Original and accessible, this study challenges nationalist constructions of history and provides a context for understanding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It is also the first comprehensive work on the Nablus region, Palestine's trade, manufacturing, and agricultural heartland, and a bastion of local autonomy. Doumani rediscovers Palestine by writing the inhabitants of this ancient land into history.

Jordi Tejel presents – combining different disciplines such as history, sociology and anthropology – a new understanding of the dynamics leading to the consolidation of a Kurdish minority awareness in contemporary Syria. The book explores in particular how conditions for a change in ethnic strategy, from one of 'dissimulation' to one of 'visibility', have emerged amongst Syria's Kurds.

Freedom in the World contains both comparative ratings and written narratives and is now the standard reference work for measuring the progress and decline in political rights and civil liberties on a global basis.

The Arab Spring promised to end dictatorship and bring self-government to people across the Middle East. Yet everywhere except Tunisia it led to either renewed dictatorship, civil war, extremist terror, or all three. In The Arab Winter, Noah Feldman argues that the Arab Spring was nevertheless not an unmitigated failure, much less an inevitable one. Rather, it was a noble, tragic series of events in which, for the first time in recent Middle Eastern history, Arabic-speaking peoples took free, collective political action as they sought to achieve self-determination.

An array of scholars from different parts of the world join in a multidisciplinary effort to study and integrate available knowledge and perceptions regarding the Druze as a religious community and historical society. The scholars whose work appears in this volume will undoubtedly be helpful to those who seek to know more about the Druze-their faith, identity and society, and the role that they have played in the history of the Middle East. In the planning of the first international academic conference of the Druze Heritage Foundation (DHF), held in collaboration with the Middle East Centre at St. Antony's College, Oxford, in July 2002, it was thought best not to concentrate on any single aspect of the Druze legacy, but to attempt to cover the widest possible range of themes, the better to bring out the Druze ethos as understood by the Druze themselves and as perceived by others. Thus, of the fifteen papers presented in this volume, which were the ones ultimately received in publishable form, the first four relate to religious issues. An explanation of the Druze faith by Sami Makarem (American University of Beirut) is followed by a critical assessment of the pioneering work of the French Orientalist, Sylvestre de Sacy, on the subject, contributed by Tony P. Nawfal (independent scholar). Next, David R. W. Bryer (former head of OXFAM) presents a survey of Druze religious texts, while Naila Kaidbey (American University of Beirut) describes the career of the fifteenth-century Druze reformer, al-Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Tanukhi, commonly regarded as the founder of what one may call normative Druzism....

Moving from the revolutionary rhetoric prominent in the early days of President Hafez al-Assad¿s regime to the present stance of the country¿s economic reformers and rising business class, this new study traces the evolution of Ba¿thist ideological discourse in Syria. The first part of the book focuses on the trend, over the course of the first Assad presidency, away from the idea of revolution toward the ¿disciplining logic¿ that stressed the need for production, sacrifice, and social peace. Turning to the current regime, the second part highlights the ongoing tensions between those that favor the encouragement of entrepreneurship and their opponents, who are championing a new form of Social Darwinism.