New Book: “Burning Country” – New edition, Syrians in Revolution and War
by authors Robin Yassin-Kassab and Leila Al-Shami
Paperback | 20th February 2018 | 9780745337821 | 320pp | £14.99
In 2011, many Syrians took to the streets of Damascus to demand the overthrow of the government of Bashar al-Assad. Today, much of Syria has become a war zone where foreign journalists find it almost impossible to report on life in this devastated land.
Burning Country explores the horrific and complicated reality of life in present-day Syria with unprecedented detail and sophistication, drawing on new first hand testimonies from opposition fighters, exiles lost in an archipelago of refugee camps, and courageous human rights activists among many others. These stories are expertly interwoven with a trenchant analysis of the brutalisation of the conflict and the militarisation of the uprising, of the rise of the Islamists and sectarian warfare, and the role of governments in Syria and elsewhere in exacerbating those violent processes.
With chapters focusing on ISIS and Islamism, regional geopolitics, the new grassroots revolutionary organisations, and the worst refugee crisis since World War Two, Burning Country is a vivid and groundbreaking look at a modern-day political and humanitarian nightmare.
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 novelThe Road from Damascus (Penguin, 2009) and contributor to Syria Speaks (Saqi, 2014).
‘Extraordinary … the book on Syria I was waiting for’ – Molly Crabapple
‘Gripping … Cutting through the fog of geopolitics, Burning Country refocuses the conflict with the people at its centre’ – Newsweek
‘A detailed history of Syria’s moderate opposition and a meticulous analysis of the origins of today’s violent dynamics’ – New Statesman
‘An important, honest and insightful book’ – Washington Post
Original edition shortlisted for the 2017 Rathbones Folio Prize
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*This is the new edition of the book Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War, which was originally published in January 2015. New edition contains extra-long additional chapter bringing it right up to date.
*Review copies available,
*Authors are based in Castle Douglas, Scotland and available for interview, comment and op-eds
* You can read Robin’s articles in The Guardian, Al Jazeera English, Foreign Policy, The National, and The New Arab, and has contributed to Guernica, the Daily Beast, and Newsweek Middle East
*Robin has been interviewed on BBC 2’s Newsnight, BBC World Service’s Newshour and BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight and appeared in Sebastian Junger’s recent documentary Hell on Earth
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