A concise, accessible overview of the maddeningly complex civil conflict in Syria and its destabilizing impact on both Middle Eastern politics and the broader international system.

The Syrian Crisis began with political protest yet evolved into an open and brutal civil war. How did that come to pass? The Syrian Crisis: What Everyone Needs to Know® helps to explain how and why, serving as a comprehensive yet accessible guide to this hugely impactful yet little-understood conflict. Drawing from nearly a decade of research and analysis of the Syrian crisis, Charles Lister provides a wide-angle view of an exceedingly complicated conflict that covers all of its different moving parts. After opening with a history of modern Syria, he shifts to the eruption of political protest and its evolution into an open and brutal civil conflict. The civil war that resulted generated an unprecedented expansion of terrorism, including the rise of ISIS; the resurgence of Russia and Iran; an unparalleled humanitarian and refugee crisis that upended domestic European politics; and the erosion of long-held international norms like the ban on the use of chemical weapons. The crisis in Syria has transformed not just the Middle East, but much of the rest of the world. This book helps to explain how and why.