Ross Burns

How can a nation's archaeological treasures help explain its history, especially one as richly complex as Syria's? Ross Burns chooses 40 among Syria's outstanding range of sites, accompanied by over 200 colour illustrations, to take the reader through the tangled paths of this crossroads of the eastern Mediterranean where numerous world cultures intersected. Given the last 12 years of savage...

Shortlisted for the 2018 British-Kuwait Friendship Society Book Prize Aleppo is one of the longest-surviving cities of the ancient and Islamic Middle East. Until recently, it enjoyed a thriving urban life—in particular, an active traditional suq, with a continuous tradition going back centuries. Its tangle of streets still follows the Hellenistic grid, and above it looms the great Citadel, which...