"[F]illed with rare encounters with Syria's oldest, most elite                  families. Critics of anthropology's taste for exoticism and marginality will savor                  this study of upper-class Damascus, a world that is urbane and cosmopolitan, yet in                  many ways as remote as the settings in which the best ethnography has traditionally                  been done.... [Written] with a nuanced appreciation of the cultural forms in                  question and how Damascenes themselves think, talk about, and create them." --                  Andrew ShryockIn contemporary urban Syria, debates about the                  representation, preservation, and restoration of the Old City of Damascus have                  become part of status competition and identity construction among the city's elite.                  In theme restaurants and nightclubs that play on images of Syrian tradition, in                  television programs, nostalgic literature, and visual art, and in the rhetoric of                  historic preservation groups, the idea of the Old City has become a commodity for                  the consumption of tourists and, most important, of new and old segments of the                  Syrian upper class. In this lively ethnographic study, Christa Salamandra argues                  that in deploying and debating such representations, Syrians dispute the past and                  criticize the present.Indiana Series in Middle East Studies --                  Mark Tessler, general editor

A New Old Damascus: Authenticity And Distinction In Urban Syria (Indiana Series in Middle East Studies) PDF

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