Syria's Transnational Rebellion: Diaspora Politics and the Revolt of 1925-1927

by Reem Bailony

Overview

This book brings to light the little-known story of Syrian-Lebanese migrant mobilizations around the 1925 Syrian Revolt against the French Mandate. Situated within the wider context of the emergent post-World War I international system, the book centres Syrian-Lebanese transnational efforts as central to understanding the fluid era of the 1920s. From the League of Nations in Geneva to the banquet halls of Detroit, global Syrians acted as synapses connecting networks within and beyond the French Mandate as they clamoured to create change back home. Syrian-Lebanese diaspora networks drew in and entangled a French colonial infrastructure that became vulnerable to migrant mobilizations, prompting the French to combat the rebellion outside of Mandatory borders. Syria’s Transnational Rebellion shows how the diasporic activities challenged the emerging postwar order even as it helped solidify its norms, crystallized a separatist Lebanese nationalism, and tested the limitations of nation-states in formation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399518109
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	05/31/2025
Series:	Alternative Histories
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Reem Bailony is an Associate Professor of Middle East History at Agnes Scott College in Decatur, Georgia. She is previously a Druze Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Contemporary Studies and a Senior Smithsonian Institution Research Fellow.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Abbreviations, Timeline of Events, and Cast of Characters

Introduction. Diaspora Mobilization and a Changing World Order

1. Geneva: The Mahjar, the Mandate, and the Syro-Palestinian Congress
2. Damascus: Global Reverberations of a City Under Bombs
3. Rashaya: Transnational Suffering and the Making of Lebanon
4. Detroit: Uncle Sam and Amir Shakib Arslan
5. al-Azraq: Refugees, Rebels, and the Children of the Dessert

Conclusion. Reckoning with Revolutionary Echoes

Bibliography
Index