A New Old Damascus

Author : Christa Salamandra
Publisher : Indiana University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780253110411
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A New Old Damascus written by Christa Salamandra and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2004-12-10 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[F]illed with rare encounters with Syria's oldest, most elite families. Critics of anthropology's taste for exoticism and marginality will savor this study of upper-class Damascus, a world that is urbane and cosmopolitan, yet in many ways as remote as the settings in which the best ethnography has traditionally been done.... [Written] with a nuanced appreciation of the cultural forms in question and how Damascenes themselves think, talk about, and create them." -- Andrew Shryock In contemporary urban Syria, debates about the representation, preservation, and restoration of the Old City of Damascus have become part of status competition and identity construction among the city's elite. In theme restaurants and nightclubs that play on images of Syrian tradition, in television programs, nostalgic literature, and visual art, and in the rhetoric of historic preservation groups, the idea of the Old City has become a commodity for the consumption of tourists and, most important, of new and old segments of the Syrian upper class. In this lively ethnographic study, Christa Salamandra argues that in deploying and debating such representations, Syrians dispute the past and criticize the present. Indiana Series in Middle East Studies -- Mark Tessler, general editor

Author : Brigid Keenan
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9780500282991
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.94/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Damascus written by Brigid Keenan and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Damascus, reputed to be the worldʹs oldest continually inhabited city, has enjoyed a history of immense grandeur, enormous political and mercantile power, and great cultural and artistic achievement. In addition to some of Islamʹs most magnificent architecture, such as the Umayyad Mosque, the city boasts a heritage of fairy-tale palaces and sumptuous private houses. Sadly, many of them are in urgent need of restoration. Brigid Keenan and Tim Beddow were given unprecedented access to the inner, "hidden" city, which has resulted in a book that is of immense importance to all concerned with the heritage of architecture in the Islamic world. The superb photographs include façades, courtyards, alleyways and fountains, and the breathtaking interiors that often lie behind the unassuming walls of the old town, with exquisite details in stone, wood, paint, marble, plaster, glass and mother-of-pearl. The whole, published with the generous support of Wafic Rida Said, forms a convincing and elegiac plea for the preservation of the heart of this historic ancient capital. -- Jacket.

Author : Diana Darke
Publisher : Haus Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1908323655
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book My House in Damascus written by Diana Darke and published by Haus Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ongoing conflict in Syria has made clear just how limited the general knowledge of Syrian society and history is in the West. For those watching the headlines and wondering what led the nation to this point, and what might come next, this book is a perfect place to start developing a deeper understanding. Based on decades of living and working in Syria, My House in Damascus offers an inside view of Syria’s cultural and complex religious and ethnic communities. Diana Darke, a fluent Arabic speaker who moved to Damascus in 2004 after decades of regular visits, details the ways that the Assad regime, and its relationship to the people, differs from the regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya—and why it was thus always less likely to collapse quickly, even in the face of widespread unrest and violence. Through the author’s firsthand experiences of buying and restoring a house in the old city of Damascus, which she later offered as a sanctuary to friends, Darke presents a clear picture of the realities of life on the ground and what hope there is for Syria’s future.

Author : Robin Yassin-Kassab
Publisher : Penguin UK
ISBN 13 : 0141918519
Total Pages : 374 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Road from Damascus written by Robin Yassin-Kassab and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2008-06-05 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is summer 2001 and Sami Traifi has escaped his fraying marriage and minimal job prospects to visit Damascus. In search of his roots and himself, he instead finds a forgotten uncle in a gloomy back room, and an ugly secret about his beloved father... Returning to London, Sami finds even more to test him as his young wife Muntaha reveals that she is taking up the hijab. Sami embarks on a wilfully ragged journey in the opposite direction, away from religion – but towards what? As Sami struggles to understand Muntaha’s newly-deepened faith, her brother Ammar’s hip hop Islamism and his father-in-law’s need to see grandchildren, so his emotional and spiritual unraveling begins to accelerate. And the more he rebels, the closer he comes to betraying those he loves, edging ever-nearer to the brink of losing everything... Set against a powerfully-evoked backdrop of multi-ethnic, multi-faith London, The Road from Damascus explores themes as big as love, faith and hope, and as fundamental as our need to believe in something bigger than ourselves, whatever that might be.

Author : Ross Burns
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1134488505
Total Pages : 409 pages
Book Rating : 4.06/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Damascus written by Ross Burns and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2007-06-11 with total page 409 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lavishly illustrated with beautiful photographs and original plans, traces the story of this colourful, significant and complex place through its physical development and provides, for the first time in English, a compelling and unique exploration of a.

Author : Richard Blake
Publisher : Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN 13 : 1848947038
Total Pages : 661 pages
Book Rating : 4.30/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Sword of Damascus (Death of Rome Saga Book Four) written by Richard Blake and published by Hodder & Stoughton. This book was released on 2011-06-09 with total page 661 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fourth book of the DEATH OF ROME SAGA is a must-read for those who loved the heroism of Gladiator and Spartacus. 687 AD. Expansive and triumphant, the Caliphate has stripped Egypt and Syria from the Byzantine Empire. Farther and farther back, the formerly hegemonic Empire has been pushed - once to the very walls of its capital, Constantinople. But what is all this to old Aelric, now in his nineties, and a refugee from the Empire he's spent his life holding together? No longer the Lord Senator Alaric, Brother Aelric is writing his memoirs in the remote wastes of northern England, and waiting patiently for death. Then a band of northern barbarians turn up outside the monastery - and then another. Before he can draw another breath, Aelric is a prisoner of unknown forces, and headed straight back into the snake pit of Mediterranean hatreds. What awaits him at the end of his long and dangerous journey is a confrontation that decides the fate of all mankind.

Author : Vinayak Bharne
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1136208518
Total Pages : 296 pages
Book Rating : 4.15/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Emerging Asian City written by Vinayak Bharne and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Asian urban landscape contains nearly half of the planet’s inhabitants and more than half of its slum population living in some of its oldest and densest cities. It encompasses some of the world’s oldest civilizations and colonizations, and today contains some of the world’s fastest growing cities and economies. As such Asian cities create concomitant imagery – polarizations of poverty and wealth, blurred lines between formality and informality, and stark juxtapositions of ancient historic places with shimmering new skylines. This book embraces the complexity and ambiguity of the Asian urban landscape, and surveys its bewildering array of multifarious urbanities and urbanisms. Twenty-four essays offer scholarly reflections and positions on the complex forces and issues shaping Asian cities today, looking at why Asian cities are different from the West and whether they are treading a different path to their futures. Their combined narrative – spanning from Turkey to Japan and Mongolia to Indonesia - is framed around three sections: Traditions reflects on indigenous urbanisms and historic places, Tensions reflects on the legacies of Asia’s East–West dialectic through both colonialism and modernism and Transformations examines Asia’s new emerging utopias and urban aspirations. The book claims that the histories and destinies of cities across various parts of Asia are far too enmeshed to unpack or oversimplify. Avoiding the categorization of Asian cities exclusively by geographic location (south-east, Middle East), or the convenient tagging of the term Asian on selective regional parts of the continent, it takes a broad intellectual view of the Asian urban landscape as a 'both...and' phenomenon; as a series of diverse confluences – geographic, historic and political – extending from the deserts of the Persian Gulf region to the Pearl River Delta. Arguing for Asian cities to be taken seriously on their own terms, this book represents Asia – as a fount of extraordinary knowledge that can challenge our fundamental preconceptions of what cities are and ought to be.

Author : Robert Stone
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 0684859114
Total Pages : 534 pages
Book Rating : 4.18/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Damascus Gate written by Robert Stone and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1999-05-04 with total page 534 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American journalist Christopher Lucas is investigating religious fanatics when he discovers a plot to bomb the sacred Temple Mount.

Author : David McCloskey
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393881059
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Damascus Station: A Novel written by David McCloskey and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Finalist for the 2022 ITW Thriller Award for Best First Novel "Damascus Station is simply marvelous storytelling.…[A] stand-out thriller and essential reading for fans of the genre." —Financial Times A CIA officer and his recruit arrive in war-ravaged Damascus to hunt for a killer in this page-turner that offers the "most authentic depiction of modern-day tradecraft in print." (Navy SEAL sniper and New York Times bestselling author Jack Carr). CIA case officer Sam Joseph is dispatched to Paris to recruit Syrian Palace official Mariam Haddad. The two fall into a forbidden relationship, which supercharges Haddad’s recruitment and creates unspeakable danger when they enter Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy. But the cat and mouse chase for the killer soon leads to a trail of high-profile assassinations and the discovery of a dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime, bringing the pair under the all-seeing eyes of Assad’s spy catcher, Ali Hassan, and his brother Rustum, the head of the feared Republican Guard. Set against the backdrop of a Syria pulsing with fear and rebellion, Damascus Station is a gripping thriller that offers a textured portrayal of espionage, love, loyalty, and betrayal in one of the most difficult CIA assignments on the planet.

Author : Colin Thubron
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 1446483657
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mirror To Damascus written by Colin Thubron and published by Random House. This book was released on 2011-06-08 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A 50th anniversary edition of Colin Thubron's celebrated first book, a portrait of Syria's capital city, with a new introduction by the author. Described by the author as simply 'a work of love', Mirror to Damascus provides a rich and fascinating history of Damascus from the Amorites of the Bible to the revolution of 1966, and is also a charming and witty personal record of an extraordinary city. In explaining how modern Damascus is rooted in immemorial layers of culture and tradition, Colin Thubron explores the historical, artistic, social and religious inheritance of its people. Along the way, he shares unforgettable stories about the enterprising travellers of bygone days. Mirror to Damascus is a unique portrait of a city now obscured by recent upheavals, by one of the most indefatigable and popular of travel writers.