This book is interesting, but it's very slow. It took me a really long time to finish it, and I normally read a lot of nonfiction.

I really enjoyed this book. I didnt have a lot of insight into Syria, just bits and pieces about the conflict there now. So this book was great. Very interesting to know the facts and hear about how these places used to be. Nothing better than someone whos been there and witnessed it first hand

Nikolaos van Dam manages to describe the complex tragedy of what has befallen Syria and why this nation has become such a major ongoing tragedy with a masterful succinctness, and has essentially ended up creating what should be considered a go-to guide on the subject.

I am always on the lookout for concise, reliable works that I can put into the hands of people who have demonstrated via reading longform journalism that they actually want solid background on a contemporary crisis--in this case, the six years and still unfolding Syrian Civil War. Van Dam is a scholar of the Middle East and has been on scene, and in the negotiating rooms of participants from Ankara to Moscow for the duration, and began his diplomatic career for the Netherlands in Beirut in the early 1980s.