My House in Damascus

the long version

Darke, a fluent Arabic speaker who moved to Damascus in 2004 after decades of regular visits, details how 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. --From publisher description.