Syria’s Transnational RebellionDiaspora Politics and the Revolt of 1925-1927

Immensely readable and meticulously researched, this book charts the post-World War I Syrian fight for independence and statehood in new and thought-provoking ways. Placing the 1925 Syrian Revolt against the French Mandate at the centre of her analysis, Bailony writes a compelling story of how diaspora politics, and the patriotic aspirations of migrants, reverberated across the Middle East, Europe and the United States — shaping insurgent geographies, past and present.

This magnificent new book shows that Syrian revolutionaries and their diaspora allies have a century of history and memory from which to draw. Reem Bailony, making use of archives in the Americas, Europe and the Middle East, shows vividly and with great originality that Syria's 1925 Revolution involved a complicated mix of rebels, revolutionaries, exiles, migrants and activists at home and abroad, and that their efforts have escaped notice or understanding, until now. This book is a spellbinding triumph of transnational history.

Syria’s Transnational Rebellion is an authoritative contribution to multiple historiographies: the transnational history of the 1925 Syrian Revolt, the history of mandate Syria and Lebanon, and the broader debates on sectarianism, nationalism, diaspora, and homeland relations. Bailony’s innovative use of multilingual primary sources, archival material, and press coverage engenders a nuanced understanding of the 1925 Revolt’s local-global and transnational dimensions, as well as the processes through which new identities, forms of belonging, and state borders were constructed in the interwar Syria and Lebanon. Bailony’s careful scholarship, analytical rigor, and rich archival work make this book essential reading for historians of the Middle East, diaspora studies, and transnational political movements.