v  ChineseTitle：叙利亚和中东战争：政治与经济史

v  Title：War in Syria and the Middle East: A Political and Economic History

v  Author：Firmian, Federico Manfredi. 

v  Publisher：University of Texas Press

v  Lan：eng

v  PubYear：2025

DESCRIPTION

A wide-ranging examination of the causes of war in Syria and the Middle East.In War in Syria and the Middle East, Federico Manfredi Firmian uses historical, political, and economic lenses to examine how Syria’s civil war is part of a broad pattern of social breakdown increasingly prevalent across the Arab and Islamic worlds. This expansive book argues that many conflicts across the Middle East today are rooted in fundamental ideological divides that originated with European imperialism. In Syria, the iniquities of French rule gave way to the radicalism of the Arab Socialist Baʿth Party, which promised to dismantle imperial legacies and capitalist logics through nationalizations, land redistribution, and central planning.Baʿthist Syria, however, ultimately failed to provide a viable alternative to capitalism. In fact, its failures, and the failures of other revolutionary regimes of socialist inspiration, provided an opening for armed Islamist movements to challenge both secular authoritarian rule and US foreign policies—ultimately leading to civil war. Combining a multidisciplinary approach with fieldwork, War in Syria and the Middle East argues for a global perspective on a pressing, ongoing conflict.

About the Author

Federico Manfredi Firmian is a lecturer in Political Science at Sciences Po Paris, Associate Research Fellow at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI), and Research Fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point.

CONTENTS

vii    Preface and Acknowledgments

xi      Note on transliteration

1     Introduction

Great Ideological Divides and War in the Greater Middle East

15  CHAPTER 1

From Ottoman Rule to the Capitalist Remaking of the Levant(1300-1946)

43  CHAPTER 2

The Promise of Pan-Arabism and Its Ultimate Demise(1946-1989)

71  CHAPTER 3

After the Cold War: US Hegemony and Islamist Revival(1989-2011)

95  CHAPTER 4

The Arab Spring Groundswell (2011-2014)

121  CHAPTER 5

The Breakup of Syria and Its Aftershocks(2014-2018)

145  CHAPTER 6

A Shattered Syria(2018-2023)

173  CONCLUSION

Patterns of State Failure across Asia and Africa

181  Notes

211  Bibliograpby

231  Index