Essays on the shifting relations between the Ba'th party and the armed forces, burgeoning private enterprise and the dramatic Turkish-Syrian detente will prove essential reading for anyone with an interst in this pivotal and assertive Middle Eastern state.

Each contribution is firmly grounded in primary research undertaken in Syria. The contributors identify current trends in Syria and go on to situate recent developments within broader contextual issues.

Editor Fred H. Lawson is a lecturer at Mills College, California. He is the author of Constructing International Relations in the Arab World (Stanford University Press) and Why Syria Goes to War (Cornell University Press).