Published on March 24, 2026 [Episode 448]
Introduction
The history of modern Syria is often reduced to a familiar and rather narrow story: autocracy, repression, and periodic revolt. It is a short narrative, typically beginning with the fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire, or perhaps with the secret arrangements of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which divided the Near East between Britain and France. In this telling, Syria appears less as a historical actor than as the product of imperial design and political dysfunction.
But as my guest Daniel Neep argues, this account is incomplete. It overlooks the late Ottoman reformers, infrastructure builders, and identity entrepreneurs who laid crucial foundations for modern Syria. It neglects the role Syrians themselves played in shaping borders and political life. And it misses something essential: the persistence with which Syrians have insisted on living with dignity, even amid upheaval. These are the arguments at the heart of his new book, Syria: A Modern History, and of our conversation today.
About the Guest
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 previously served as Syria research director with the Council for British Research in the Levant. He has lived in Syria for five years, including during the first year of the uprising, as well as in Amman and Beirut. He is the author of Syria: A Modern History.
Reflection Questions
What is lost when modern Syria is understood primarily as simply the product of colonial borders and authoritarian rule, and the decisions of those far away?
How does recovering late Ottoman reform and local agency change our understanding of the modern Middle East?
What does it mean to write a national history that takes seriously both external forces and internal aspirations for dignity?
For Further Investigation
Daniel Neep, Syria: A Modern History (Basic Books, 1926)
James L. Gelvin, The Modern Middle East: A History (Oxford, 2020)
Eugene Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East (Basic Books, 2016)
Elizabeth F. Thompson, Justice Interrupted: The Struggle for Constitutional Government in the Middle East (Harvard, 2013)
Philip S. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920-1945 (Princeton, 2016)
Related Episodes
The Damascus Events—Eugene Rogan on the 1860 Massacre and Its Legacy
Peerless Among Princes: Kaya Şahín on the life and times of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent
Empire and Jihad: Neil Faulkner on Anglo-Arab wars, imperialism, and the roots of the modern Middle East
Tags
Syria; Middle East; Ottoman Empire; Colonialism; Modern History; Political History; Daniel Neep; Historical Thinking
