Hinnebusch, one of very few Americans who has devoted a career to analyzing the politics of Syria, knows his stuff, and this book shows it. Furthermore, he has chosen a wonderful topic: how did the Ba'thists of Syria, an ideologically eccentric and socially obscure band of military men, manage to create a regime that has become entrenched as the dominant political force in the country, as well as the agents of a major system transformation? In the effort to answer this question, the author read vast amounts of material in English and a fair bibliography in French and Arabic.
But the result is disappointing. Hinnebusch writes a nearly impenetrable political-science prose. The combination of a worm's eye view and a political scientist's theorizing render what he has to say nearly unreadable. Worse, his thesis - that the Ba'thist regime had a populist character which complemented its authoritarianism - is unconvincing. The regime has long ruled through brute power and intimidation, and it would be well if analysts kept this essential fact in mind. Indeed, writers should be much more skeptical about the alleged popularity of the Hafiz al-Asad regime. As it is, Hinnebusch (like so many Western apologists for the now-defunct Eastern European regimes) risks being shown up by anti-government rage when the Syrian people are eventually liberated.
