San Antonio College Library

"This astonishing book by the prize-winning journalist Rania Abouzeid tells the tragedy of the Syrian War through the dramatic stories of four young people seeking safety and freedom in a shattered country. Extending back to the first demonstrations of 2011, No Turning Back dissects the tangle of ideologies and allegiances that make up the Syrian conflict. As protests ignited in Daraa, some citizens were brimming with a sense of possibility. A privileged...

Syria has long been one of the most trouble-prone and politically volatile regions of the Near and Middle Eastern world. This book looks back beyond the troubles of the present to tell the 3000-year story of what came before: the peoples, cities, and kingdoms that arose, flourished, declined, and disappeared in the lands that now constitute Syria, from the time of the region's earliest written records in the third millennium BC, right through the...

Nineteen-year-old Basset is the goalkeeper for the Syrian national soccer team. When revolution breaks out the charismatic young man becomes an iconic protest leader and singer. Osama is a 24-year-old media activist and pacifist wielding his camera to document the revolution. But when their beloved Homs becomes a bombed-out ghost town, these two peaceful protesters take up arms and transform into renegade insurgents, with devastating results.

Shot unembedded less than one hundred miles from ISIS controlled territory, this program offers an unprecedented in-depth perspective on the daily lives and feelings of refugees. Requiem was shot with a crew of refugees who felt the urgency to convey their situation to the world. Albeit set against a bleak background, Requiem is a film about hope. As the adolescent refugee Mizgin says: "This experience has made us stronger". The film ends with a cathartic...

In The Home that Was My Country, Syrian-American journalist Alia Malek chronicles her return to her family home in Damascus and the history of the Jabban apartment building. Here, generations of Christians, Jews, Muslims, and Armenians lived, worked, loved, and suffered in close quarters. In telling the story of her family over the course of the last century, Alia brings to light the triumphs and failures that have led Syria to where it is today....

Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, more than 4 million Syrians have fled the country, creating the greatest refugee crisis since World War II (1939-45). Most have fled to neighboring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, and Jordan, but many have risked death to reach Europe and the possibility of a better life. Unlike Europe and Syria's neighbors, the United States has had the advantage of picking and choosing from afar, taking in just over 2,000...

"An ode to fantasy and beauty in the midst of war-torn Damascus. Rima, a young girl from Damascus, longs to walk, to be free to follow the will of her feet, but instead is perpetually constrained. She finds refuge in a fantasy world full of colored crayons, secret planets, and The Little Prince, reciting passages of the Qur'an like a mantra as everything and everyone around her is blown to bits. Since Rima hardly ever speaks, people think she's crazy,...

In the rural heartland of Syria's countryside, the bloody uprising against President Bashar Al Assad has taken a terrifying turn. Award-winning filmmaker Olly Lambert lives on both sides of Syria's sectarian front line, witnessing the devastating effect of a religious feud that, regardless of the outcome of the war, is shaping Syria's future. For generations, the many religions in the Orontes River Valley have lived together peacefully. But as the...

Over a period of seven months in 2012, a group of Syrian women created video diaries to let the world know what living under Bashar al-Assad's rule is like. In this documentary, the six tell how revolution and war transformed their lives. "At first I was for the reforms," says Sima. "When did I change my mind? When there was blood." Although most support the anti-government revolt and have paid for that stance-Ayat's house was bombed, Khawla was imprisoned-Yara,...