Assad or We Burn the Country, Sam Dagher
Assad or We Burn the Country, Sam Dagher
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Assad or We Burn the Country
How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria

Author: Sam Dagher

Narrator: Gary Tiedemann

Unabridged: 19 hr 52 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 05/28/2019

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

From a Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist specializing in the Middle East, this groundbreaking account of the Syrian Civil War reveals the never-before-published true story of a 21st-century humanitarian disaster.

In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising -- an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis.

Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria's tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged in Bashar's bloody quest to preserve his father's inheritance. By drawing on his own reporting experience in Damascus and exclusive interviews with Tlass, Dagher takes readers within palace walls to reveal the family behind the destruction of a country and the chaos of an entire region.

Dagher shows how one of the world's most vicious police states came to be and explains how a regional conflict extended globally, engulfing the Middle East and pitting the United States and Russia against one another. Timely, propulsive, and expertly reported, Assad or We Burn the Country is the definitive account of this global crisis, going far beyond the news story that has dominated headlines for years.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Steven on December 16, 2019

In the last few years a number of important books dealing with the Syrian tragedy have appeared. They all reflect the gruesome nature of how Bashar al-Assad and his family have clung to power as they have slowly destroyed their country by killing over 500,000 people and creating millions of refugees......more

Goodreads review by فهد on October 19, 2020

Assad or We Burn the Country: How One Family's Lust for Power Destroyed Syria الأسد أو نحرق البلد!! هذا هو الشعار المجنون الذي أطلقه ويطلقه مؤيدو النظام السوري، مجرد تفكير الإنسان في إحراق بلده يعني أنه وصل لمرحلة مخيفة ربط فيها مصالحه ووجوده وعواطفه بالنظام، وصار بقاء النظام يبرر أي شيء وكل شيء، ال......more

Goodreads review by Patricia on May 01, 2019

Finally a real account of what is going on in Syria! And from a Pulitzer Prize nominated journalist who specializes in the Middle East. A never before heard, boots on the ground look at the Syrian Civil War that is killing the country. In 2011, President Bashar al-Assad, decided to address the Arab S......more

Quotes

A New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice PickThe Economist Bets Books of the YearThe Guardian Best Books of 2019Kirkus's Best Nonfiction Books of 2019

"A moving and insightful account of the Syrian civil war."—Yuval Noah Harari, The Guardian

"A vivid and powerful account of the roots and course of the conflict, setting it in the context of Assad's personal history and approach to power."—Washington Post

"Dagher draws on history, interviews and his own experience as a reporter in Syria to depict an utterly ruthless regime."—The New York Times Book Review, Editor's Choice

"[An] impressively detailed account"—The Guardian US

"Sam Dagher's book Assad or We Burn the Country is a vivid and at times gruelling account of the suppression of the Syrian resistance...It is a powerful testimony of a war correspondent for the Wall Street Journal. His account carries the outrage and passion of a witness to atrocity."—Financial Times

"He was briefly held by pro-regime militiamen in an underground prison and was summarily expelled by the Mukhabarat in 2014. This gives his description of events a credibility lacking in many other accounts."—Patrick Cockburn, New York Times Book Review

"An important addition to the existing literature on the Middle East - especially Syria - by an astute Middle East watcher...It is absolutely indispensable to understand current Middle Eastern and Syrian situation."—The Washington Book Review

"An excellent book on the situation in Syria."—Former US National Security Adviser H. R.McMaster

"As with so much of Dagher's writing, what's striking about the book is it doesn't just confirm the worst that's been reported about Assad's regime in the much-maligned "mainstream media;" it unearths new ways in which the horror and criminality are in fact more terrible than previously understood."—Alex Rowell, Al-Jumhuriya

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