We Crossed A Bridge And It Trembled

Author : Wendy Pearlman
Publisher : HarperCollins
ISBN 13 : 0062654454
Total Pages : 183 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled written by Wendy Pearlman and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 183 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: LONG-LISTED FOR THE CARNEGIE MEDAL Reminiscent of the work of Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, an astonishing collection of intimate wartime testimonies and poetic fragments from a cross-section of Syrians whose lives have been transformed by revolution, war, and flight. Against the backdrop of the wave of demonstrations known as the Arab Spring, in 2011 hundreds of thousands of Syrians took to the streets demanding freedom, democracy and human rights. The government’s ferocious response, and the refusal of the demonstrators to back down, sparked a brutal civil war that over the past five years has escalated into the worst humanitarian catastrophe of our times. Yet despite all the reporting, the video, and the wrenching photography, the stories of ordinary Syrians remain unheard, while the stories told about them have been distorted by broad brush dread and political expediency. This fierce and poignant collection changes that. Based on interviews with hundreds of displaced Syrians conducted over four years across the Middle East and Europe, We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled is a breathtaking mosaic of first-hand testimonials from the frontlines. Some of the testimonies are several pages long, eloquent narratives that could stand alone as short stories; others are only a few sentences, poetic and aphoristic. Together, they cohere into an unforgettable chronicle that is not only a testament to the power of storytelling but to the strength of those who face darkness with hope, courage, and moral conviction.

Author : al-Haj Saleh
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 1787380513
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Impossible Revolution written by al-Haj Saleh and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017-07-27 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Yassin al-Haj Saleh is a leftist dissident who spent sixteen years as a political prisoner and now lives in exile. He describes with precision and fervour the events that led to Syria’s 2011 uprising, the metamorphosis of the popular revolution into a regional war, and the ‘three monsters’ Saleh sees ‘treading on Syria’s corpse’: the Assad regime and its allies, ISIS and other jihadists, and Russia and the US. Where conventional wisdom has it that Assad’s army is now battling religious fanatics for control of the country, Saleh argues that the emancipatory, democratic mass movement that ignited the revolution still exists, though it is beset on all sides. The Impossible Revolution is a powerful, compelling critique of Syria’s catastrophic war, which has profoundly reshaped the lives of millions of Syrians.

Author : Rana Sweis
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 1787381706
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.04/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Voices of Jordan written by Rana Sweis and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jordan's diverse socioeconomic make-up encapsulates, like no other Middle Eastern state, both the array of pressing short-term problems facing the region, and the underlying challenges that Arab states will need to face once the current spate of civil conflicts is over: meaningful youth employment, female participation in politics, and integration of refugees into society. This book tells the story of Jordan through the lives of ordinary people, including a political cartoonist, a Syrian refugee, a Jihadist and a female parliamentarian. The raw voices and everyday struggles of these people shine a fresh light on the politics, religion, and society of a culture coming to terms with the harsh reality of modernization and urbanization at a time of regional upheaval. With her deep knowledge of Jordan's landscape, language and culture, Rana Sweis sketches an intimate portrait of the intricacies and complexities of life in the Middle East. Rather than focusing on how individuals are affected by events in the region, she reveals a cast of characters shaping their own lives and times. Voices of Jordan shares those stories in all of their rich detail, offering a living, breathing social and political history.

Author : Wendy Pearlman
Publisher : Nation Books
ISBN 13 : 9781560255307
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Occupied Voices written by Wendy Pearlman and published by Nation Books. This book was released on 2003-07-01 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the Middle East peace process disintegrates and the second Palestinian Intifada begins, Wendy Pearlman, a young Jewish woman from the American Midwest travels to the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a quest to talk to ordinary Palestinians. A remarkable narrative emerges from her conversations with doctors, artists, school kids, and families who have lost loved ones or watched their homes destroyed. Their stories, ranging from the humorous to the tragic, paint a profile of the Palestinians that is as honest as it is uncommon in the Western media: that of ordinary people who simply want to live ordinary lives. As Pearlman writes, "the personal stories and heartfelt reflections that I encountered did not expose a hatred of Jews or a yearning to push Israelis into the sea. Rather, they painted a portrait of a people who longed for precisely that which had inspired the first Israelis: the chance to be citizens in a country of their own."

Author : Wendy Pearlman
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1139503057
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.51/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement written by Wendy Pearlman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2011-10-24 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why do some national movements use violent protest and others nonviolent protest? Wendy Pearlman shows that much of the answer lies inside movements themselves. Nonviolent protest requires coordination and restraint, which only a cohesive movement can provide. When, by contrast, a movement is fragmented, factional competition generates new incentives for violence and authority structures are too weak to constrain escalation. Pearlman reveals these patterns across one hundred years in the Palestinian national movement, with comparisons to South Africa and Northern Ireland. To those who ask why there is no Palestinian Gandhi, Pearlman demonstrates that nonviolence is not simply a matter of leadership. Nor is violence attributable only to religion, emotions or stark instrumentality. Instead, a movement's organizational structure mediates the strategies that it employs. By taking readers on a journey from civil disobedience to suicide bombings, this book offers fresh insight into the dynamics of conflict and mobilization.

Author : Wendy Pearlman
Publisher : Columbia University Press
ISBN 13 : 0231548540
Total Pages : 396 pages
Book Rating : 4.40/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Triadic Coercion written by Wendy Pearlman and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-16 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the post–Cold War era, states increasingly find themselves in conflicts with nonstate actors. Finding it difficult to fight these opponents directly, many governments instead target states that harbor or aid nonstate actors, using threats and punishment to coerce host states into stopping those groups. Wendy Pearlman and Boaz Atzili investigate this strategy, which they term triadic coercion. They explain why states pursue triadic coercion, evaluate the conditions under which it succeeds, and demonstrate their arguments across seventy years of Israeli history. This rich analysis of the Arab-Israeli conflict, supplemented with insights from India and Turkey, yields surprising findings. Traditional discussions of interstate conflict assume that the greater a state’s power compared to its opponent, the more successful its coercion. Turning that logic on its head, Pearlman and Atzili show that this strategy can be more effective against a strong host state than a weak one because host regimes need internal cohesion and institutional capacity to move against nonstate actors. If triadic coercion is thus likely to fail against weak regimes, why do states nevertheless employ it against them? Pearlman and Atzili’s investigation of Israeli decision-making points to the role of strategic culture. A state’s system of beliefs, values, and institutionalized practices can encourage coercion as a necessary response, even when that policy is prone to backfire. A significant contribution to scholarship on deterrence, asymmetric conflict, and strategic culture, Triadic Coercion illuminates an evolving feature of the international security landscape and interrogates assumptions that distort strategic thinking.

Author : Padma Venkatraman
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1524738131
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.36/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Bridge Home written by Padma Venkatraman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-04-14 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Readers will be captivated by this beautifully written novel about young people who must use their instincts and grit to survive. Padma infuses her story with hope and bravery that will inspire readers."--Aisha Saeed, author of the New York Times Bestseller Amal Unbound Four determined homeless children make a life for themselves in Padma Venkatraman's stirring middle-grade debut. Life is harsh on the teeming streets of Chennai, India, so when runaway sisters Viji and Rukku arrive, their prospects look grim. Very quickly, eleven-year-old Viji discovers how vulnerable they are in this uncaring, dangerous world. Fortunately, the girls find shelter--and friendship--on an abandoned bridge that's also the hideout of Muthi and Arul, two homeless boys, and the four of them soon form a family of sorts. And while making their living scavenging the city's trash heaps is the pits, the kids find plenty to take pride in, too. After all, they are now the bosses of themselves and no longer dependent on untrustworthy adults. But when illness strikes, Viji must decide whether to risk seeking help from strangers or to keep holding on to their fragile, hard-fought freedom.

Author : Dawn Chatty
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0190876069
Total Pages : 301 pages
Book Rating : 4.67/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Syria written by Dawn Chatty and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The dispossession and forced migration of nearly 50 per cent of Syria's population has produced the greatest refugee crisis since World War II. This new book places the current displacement within the context of the widespread migrations that have indelibly marked the region throughout the last 150 years. Syria itself has harbored millions from its neighboring lands, and Syrian society has been shaped by these diasporas. Dawn Chatty explores how modern Syria came to be a refuge state, focusing first on the major forced migrations into Syria of Circassians, Armenians, Kurds, Palestinians, and Iraqis. Drawing heavily on individual narratives and stories of integration, adaptation, and compromise, she shows that a local cosmopolitanism came to be seen as intrinsic to Syrian society. She examines the current outflow of people from Syria to neighboring states as individuals and families seek survival with dignity, arguing that though the future remains uncertain, the resilience and strength of Syrian society both displaced internally within Syria and externally across borders bodes well for successful return and reintegration. If there is any hope to be found in the Syrian civil war, it is in this history." -- Publisher's description

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 : Alia Malek
Publisher : Bold Type Books
ISBN 13 : 9781568588445
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Home That Was Our Country written by Alia Malek and published by Bold Type Books. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Alia Malek weaves a lyrical narrative around the history of her family's apartment building in the heart of Damascus, the many lives that crossed in the stairwell, and how the fates of her neighbors reflect the fate of her country. Reading Group Guide Included At the Arab Spring's hopeful start, Alia Malek returned to Damascus to reclaim her grandmother's apartment, which had been lost to her family since Hafez al-Assad came to power in 1970. Its loss was central to her parent's decision to make their lives in America. In chronicling the people who lived in the Tahaan building, past and present, Alia portrays the Syrians--the Muslims, Christians, Jews, Armenians, and Kurds--who worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters, mirroring the political shifts in their country. Restoring her family's home as the country comes apart, she learns how to speak the coded language of oppression that exists in a dictatorship, while privately confronting her own fears about Syria's future. The Home That Was Our Country is a deeply researched, personal journey that shines a delicate but piercing light on Syrian history, society, and politics. Teeming with insights, the narrative weaves acute political analysis with a century of intimate family history, delivering an unforgettable portrait of the Syria that is being erased.