Asaad al-Shaibani, Syria’s foreign minister, outlines post-civil war plans to rebuild international relations and internal governance. The new regime aims for inclusivity, economic investment, and transitional justice while addressing community trust. He emphasizes a pragmatic approach towards rebuilding, focusing on diplomatic ties, especially with the UK and Turkey, amidst regional challenges.
I discovered this book at Chatham House library. The front cover image of Arkan with his trademark white tiger gave away a lot of the subject detail of the book. It focuses on the war of the former Yugoslavia. Later in the work we touch upon the mass atrocities in…
View More Review: Architectures of Violence – The Command Structures of Modern Mass Atrocities – by Kate Ferguson
‘Et tu Brute’ – these are the immortal words of Shakespeare, recounting the treacherous death of one of Rome’s greatest Emperors, Julius Caesar. This book, by Peter Stothard, is a historical novel, recounting the last days of Caesar and the Empire of Rome immediately after his death and how, to…
View More Review: The Last Assassin – The Hunt for the Killers of Julius Caesar – by Peter Stothard
Ingrid Betancourt was one of the most high profile political prisoners in the world during her captivity in the Colombian Jungle at the hands of the FARC-EP, Colombia’s left wing communist guerrillas. A brutal civil war has raged for the best part of 60 years in this Southern hemisphere country.…
View More Review: Even Silence has an End – My six years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle – by Ingrid BetancourtThis is one of the most remarkable books I have ever read, a first witness account of some of the most important world events of the first half of the twentieth century, a rich period for revolutionary events and the author, Victor Serge, a Belgian born Russian, is perfectly poised…
View More Review: Memoirs of a Revolutionary – by Victor Serge
This book is a nice, concise look at the Spanish Civil War. I used it for revision purposes, to remind myself of some of the details of heavier tomes that I have encountered on this subject. The author’s analysis of the causes of the War are precise and factual, without…
View More Review: Franco and The Spanish Civil War – by Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses
The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 by Antony Beevor My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a definitive history of the Spanish Civil War. The book has been regarded by the Spanish themselves as one of the best-researched volumes on this dark period of turmoil in…
View More Review: The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 – by Antony Beevor
The FARC: The Longest Insurgency by Garry Leech My rating: 4 of 5 stars This book covers a very interesting subject for what in general there is a dearth of information and that which does exist tends to be fundamentally skewed with bias. The left wing of Colombia’s forty year…
View More Review: The FARC: The Longest Insurgency
I’m still unsure exactly what to be doing with my blog… Do I keep it to just music? Or football? Or everything in my life? My idea of a blog is an online diary, somewhere to air your thoughts. I guess sometimes that thinking can be controversial. The blog is…
View More Kosovo – Independence