Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Preface
Maps
1. Revolution From Above
2. Bashaar’s First Decade
3. Revolution From Below
4. The Grassroots
5. Militarisation and Liberation
6. Scorched Earth: The Rise of the Islamisms
7. Dispossession and Exile
8. Culture Revolutionised
9. The Failure of the Elites
10. The Start of Solidarity
11. Syria Dismantled
Further Reading
Notes
Index

About the Author

Robin Yassin-Kassab is a regular media commentator on Syria and the Middle East. He is the co-author of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War (Pluto, 2016, 2018) and author of the novel The Road from Damascus (Penguin, 2009) and contributor to Syria Speaks (Saqi, 2014).

Leila Al-Shami has worked with the human rights movement in Syria and across in the Middle East. She is the co-author of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War (Pluto, 2016, 2018) and a founding member of Tahrir-ICN, a network that aimed to connect anti-authoritarian struggles across the Middle East, North Africa and Europe.

Reviews

'The most succinct and convincing insider's narrative of the uprising'
*Richard Spencer, Daily Telegraph*

'Full of fascinating details'
*Robyn Cresswell - The New York Review of Books*

'Extraordinary ... the book on Syria I was waiting for'
*Molly Crabapple, artist, author, journalist*

'Gripping ... Cutting through the fog of geopolitics, Burning Country refocuses the conflict with the people at its centre'
*Brian Whitaker, Newsweek*

'A detailed history of Syria's moderate opposition and a meticulous analysis of the origins of today's violent dynamics'
*New Statesman*

'Explores how Syria's peaceful uprising gave way to armed insurgency and sectarian jihad... This is an important, honest and insightful book, well worth anyone's time'
*Marc Lynch, Washington Post*

'Avoids the easy indulgence of indignation; instead, it elicits the voices of many different Syrians involved in the uprising, acknowledging their suffering as well as their courage, intelligence, and humanity, while explaining the terrible choices that have been forced on them'
*Ursula Lindsey, The Nation*

'Vital'
*Peter Geoghegan - the Herald Scotland*

'For decades Syrians have been forbidden from telling their own stories and the story of their country, but here Robin Yassin-Kassab and Leila al-Shami tell the Syrian story'
*Yassin al-Haj Saleh, Syrian writer, intellectual, and former political prisoner*

'By far the best account of the Syrian uprising yet'
*Dr. Yasser Munif, Professor of sociology at Emerson College, co-founder of the Global Campaign of Solidarity with the Syrian Revolution*