A New Old Damascus: Authenticity and Distinction in Urban Syria

"[F]illed with rare encounters with Syria's oldest, most elite families. Critics of anthropology's taste for exoticism and marginality will savor this study of upper—class Damascus, a world that is urbane and cosmopolitan, yet in many ways as remote as the settings in which the best ethnography has traditionally been done. . . . [Written] with a nuanced appreciation of the cultural forms in question and how Damascenes themselves think, talk about, and create them." —Andrew Shryock

In contemp...