The Syrian state is less than 100 years old, born from the wreckage of World War I. Today it stands in ruins, shattered by brutal civil war. How did this happen? How did the lands that are today Syria survive incorporation with the...

Celebrated for its ancient water wheels, the town of Hama is located on Syria's longest river, the Orontes. Ottoman Hama was a stopover on the major north-south road of Syria as well as the center of a local economic zone of its own....