Syria: Daniel Neep on the Modern History of a Very Old Place

The history of modern Syria is usually reduced to a story of autocracy, repression, and occasional revolt. And it is a short story, stretching back only to the fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire, or perhaps to the secret terms of the Sykes-Picot Agreement that divided the Near East between Britain and France. 

But my guest Daniel Neep has a different perspective. He believes that such narratives overlook “the pre-​colonial foundations for modern Syria that were undertaken by reformers, infrastructure builders and identity entrepreneurs in the late Ottoman Empire.” They also neglect “the role that Syrians themselves played in determining the precise course of these borders” as well as the ways in which Syrians “ have fiercely clung to their right to live with respect and dignity.” These are some of the arguments which he develops in his new book Syria: A Modern History.

Daniel Neep is Senior Editor at Arab Center Washington DC and a non-resident fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. He has taught Middle East politics at George Washington University, Georgetown University, and the University of Exeter, and was previously Syria research director with the Council for British Research in the Levant. He has lived in Syria for five years, including for the first year of the uprising, as well as in Amman, and Beirut, and now lives in Washington, DC.