Synopses & Reviews
For more than thirty years Hafez al-Asad has ruled Syria with an iron fist. Six U.S. presidents and eight Israeli prime ministers have come and gone, but Asad remains, one of the last of the old generation of Arab leaders. But in the post-Cold War Middle East Asad and his country are faced with an array of bewildering choices. Will they allow greater civil liberties and economic liberalization, or assert strong, centralized one-party control of the state? Will they make peace with Israel, and at what price? Will they cement their growing relationship with the United States or return to the hostilities of the past?
Eyal Zisser tackles these questions and gets inside the mind of the man President Clinton called "the smartest leader in the Middle East." He also examines the peculiar dynamics of the Asad family with its Byzantine power plays and competing factions. He tells the fascinating story of how Asad struggles to appease his relatives and his clan while his son waits in the wings to assume power and his brother plots from abroad to gain control of the nation he regards as rightfully his.
Asad's Legacy is the most up-to-date, thorough treatment of Asad's role in the history and politics of the contemporary Middle East. Zisser sheds new light on the story of Asad's rule over his nation and points the way to the future of Syria and the entire region.
Review
"These remarkable diaries, a veritable Roseta Stone of lesbian life in the early nineteenth century, tell the story of the life and loves of Anne Lister, a outwardly conventional upper-class Englishwoman, who, from adolescence onward, was involved in a succession of passionate affairs with other women. Composed in a secret cipher - a kiss is Lister's codeword for orgasm, as in Two kisses last night, one almost immediately after the other, before we went to sleep- and ably decoded by Helena Whitbread, who spent six years editing them, the diaries trace not only Lister's relationships, but her attempts at self-definition and her strikingly confident and guilt free outlook. Lister's account of her daily life and her sometimes snobbish, but always compelling and unflinching commentary about the failings and shortcomings of her friends and acquaintances only add to the book's readability. One may take delight in what is here: the souvenir of an unabashed and often triumphant erotic life . . . . Rediscovered after nearly two hundred years, the story of [Anne Lister's] desire--and of the comic, gallant ways in which she satisfied it--seems especially poignant . . . . What Lister's diary suggests is that . . . the passion women find together has always existed, and we have only now begun to uncover its remarkable, lyrical history."-The Women's Review of Books,
Review
"Well-researched and straightforward"-International Affairs,Oct. 2001
Review
"This is a well-documented and perceptive analysis of the workings of the Syrian regime and of the problems confronting the country...well worth reading."-
International Journal,Autumn 2001
Review
"As a document of one woman's revolt against conventions and as a celebration of love between women, this is an uplifting book." -The Independent,
Review
"An interesting historical record, edited with great sensitivity . . . . [Lister] reveals her lesbian affairs with remarkable honesty, offering a rare insight into the mores of the time."-Sunday Independent,
Review
"...the souvenir of an unabashed and often triumphant erotic life, rediscovered after nearly two hundred years, the story of [Anne Lister's] desire- and of the comic, gallant ways in which she satisfied it-seems especially poignant...the passion women find together has always existed, and we have only now begun to uncover its remarkable, lyrical history. " -The Women's Review of Books,
Synopsis
Upon publication, the first volume of Anne Lister's diaries,
I Know My Own Heart, met with celebration, delight, and some skepticism. How could an upper class Englishwoman, in the first half of the nineteenth century, fulfill her emotional and sexual needs when her sexual orientation was toward other women? How did an aristocratic lesbian manage to balance sexual fulfillment with social acceptability?
Helena Whitbread, the editor of these diaries, here allows us an inside look at the long-running love affair between Anne Lister and Marianna Lawton, an affair complicated by Anne's infatuation with Maria Barlow. Anne travels to Paris where she discovers a new love interest that conflicts with her developing social aspirations. For the first time, she begins to question the nature of her identity and the various roles female lovers may play in the life of a gentrywoman. Though unequipped with a lesbian vocabulary with which to describe her erotic life, her emotional conflicts are contemporary enough to speak to us all.
This book will satisfy the curiosity of the many who became acquainted with Lister through I Know My Own Heart and are eager to learn more about her revealing life and what it suggests about the history of sexuality.
About the Author
Eyal Zisser is Professor of Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University.