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So, I will say that I have read most of the Rojava books. From Mr. Gunter's book to this one, I think it's about six in total now. I also have been following the conflict for a while.
The book is well-written. It reads easily. It's smooth.
The argument is straight-forward, and from my highlights, it has several important, new, points about the Rojava-related conflict that is new and useful for researchers. For example, how people who are involved in the PYD had to concern themselves with so-called "opportunists" who were non-aligned until the YPG started taking lots of territory.
But, this is where the useful information kind of ends. It tells you a lot of HOW but not a lot of WHY.
There's very little "high politics" stuff written, in the sense of who's in charge, how they built the institutions. It's like, suddenly the institution is there (women's homes) and then, it's all good because everyone likes it. There's not an explanation of why it worked -- in the sense of wider Syrian society and the reaction by the local people.
This brings us to another problem. I swear, you would not even know you were reading about Syria. Yes, Rojava is different, but it is still in Syria and yet there were no real connections drawn to Syria and Syrian history. This was a very, very ahistorical book and wrote about Rojava in a vacuum.
Which brings me to my last point. The quotations.
There were a lot of really, really, really, long quotations. I mean, why bother writing a book when you could just list all the quotations and just have some summaries underneath it?
So, 3 stars.
- Paperback: 368 pages
- Publisher: Pluto Press; 1 edition (June 20, 2018)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0745337724
- ISBN-13: 978-0745337722
- Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 1.1 x 8.5 inches
- Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
- Customer Reviews: 1 customer review
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#593,580 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #651 in Human Rights Law (Books)
- #600 in Political Freedom (Books)
- #148 in Syria History
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