"Lefevre has produced a richly detailed, well-written, and sober analytical account of the history of Syria's Muslim Brotherhood. He does an outstanding job of bringing together a wide range of English, French, and Arabic sources to convincingly place the Syrian Brotherhood within its local political context.
Ashes of Hama is without question the best available comprehensive English-language work on Syrian Islamist politics." --
Foreign Policy, "Best of 2013"
"No book could be more timely than Lef�vre's on the Muslim Brotherhood. Anyone wishing to understand Syria must understand the long and bitter history of the Muslim Brotherhood's struggle with the Assad regime. Islamic groups are poised to take power in Syria and the Brotherhood is foremost among them. Westerners and Syrians alike who fail to appreciate the importance and centrality of the Brotherhood to Syria's modern history are foolish." --Joshua M. Landis, Director, Center for Middle East Studies, University of Oklahoma, and author
Syria Comment "To understand the blood-letting in Syria there is no better guide than Rapha�l Lef�vre s brilliant, wonderfully-sourced and timely book. He demonstrates that the current vicious civil war is but the latest phase of a fifty-year struggle between the Muslim Brothers and the secular Ba th Party, which seized power in Damascus in 1963, overturning Syria s centuries-old socioeconomic and political order." --Patrick Seale, author of
The Struggle for Syria and Asad: The Struggle for the Middle East "A fascinating study that unravels the complexity of dynamics between radical and more moderate currents within the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, and its most radical offshoots that were primarily responsible for prematurely provoking the Ba'th regime into the tragic bloodbath of Hama in 1982. Lef�vre explains how today's Syrian Revolution provided the Brotherhood with a golden opportunity to make a historical comeback to the forefront of Syrian politics, after decennia of relentless repression by the Syrian Ba'th regime." --Nikolaos van Dam, author of
The Struggle for Power in Syria: Politics and Society Under Asad and the Ba'th Party, and former Ambassador of the Netherlands to Iraq, Egypt, Turkey, Germany and Indonesia
"A timely and essential history ... [
Ashes of Hama]'s great strength is the way in which it sets the Syrian story of the Brotherhood in the context of the place, firmly rooted in the country's tumultuous, often violent post-colonial history." -- Frederick Deknatel,
The National "Rapha�l Lef�vre's book sheds valuable light on the Islamist movements that seem poised to take power in a post-Ba'th Syria. It draws on new primary sources, such as interviews with and memoirs of Brotherhood leaders and Western government archives. The definitive study of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, it also throws new light on its jihadi offshoots." --
Middle East Journal "An impressive and unprecedented compendium of research." --
New York Journal of Books "In a compact and compelling account, [
Ashes of Hama] describes in detail the build-up to an Islamist uprising in the city of Hama in February 1982. ... [A]n important addition to Syria scholarship because the author debunks more thoroughly than others have done the myth perpetuated by the regime and accepted as received wisdom by the world ever since that the Muslim Brotherhood was responsible for the anti-government violence in the 1970s." --
Times Literary Supplement "A wonderful book... Highly recommended." --
CHOICE "The work of Lefevre allows for a re-evaluation of the influence attributed to the Brotherhood in the [Syrian] revolution, and questions the role of the organisation in a post-Assad Syria." -- Jean-Loup Samaan,
Politique �trang�re
