Syria's Transnational Rebellion - (Alternative Histories) by Reem Bailony (Hardcover)

About the Book

The first transnational study of the Syrian Revolt of 1925-1927.

Book Synopsis

This book brings to light the little-known story of Syrian-Lebanese migrant mobilizations around the 1925 Syrian Revolt against the French Mandate. Situated within the wider context of the emergent post-World War I international system, the book centres Syrian-Lebanese transnational efforts as central to understanding the fluid era of the 1920s. From the League of Nations in Geneva to the banquet halls of Detroit, global Syrians acted as synapses connecting networks within and beyond the French Mandate as they clamoured to create change back home. Syrian-Lebanese diaspora networks drew in and entangled a French colonial infrastructure that became vulnerable to migrant mobilizations, prompting the French to combat the rebellion outside of Mandatory borders. Syria's Transnational Rebellion shows how the diasporic activities challenged the emerging postwar order even as it helped solidify its norms, crystallized a separatist Lebanese nationalism, and tested the limitations of nation-states in formation.

Review Quotes

This magnificent new book shows that Syrian revolutionaries and their diaspora allies have a century of history and memory from which to draw. Reem Bailony, making use of archives in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East, shows vividly and with great originality that Syria's 1925 Revolution involved a complicated mix of rebels, revolutionaries, exiles, migrants and activists at home and abroad, and that their efforts have escaped notice or understanding, until now. This book is a spellbinding triumph of transnational history.--Michael Provence, University of California, San Diego

Immensely readable and meticulously researched, this book charts the post-World War I Syrian fight for independence and statehood in new and thought-provoking ways. Placing the 1925 Syrian Revolt against the French Mandate at the centre of her analysis, Bailony writes a compelling story of how diaspora politics, and the patriotic aspirations of migrants, reverberated across the Middle East, Europe and the United States -- shaping insurgent geographies, past and present.--Sarah M.A. Gualtieri, USC Dornsife