In The Rule of Violence, Salwa Ismail, a professor of politics at SOAS, goes considerably beyond a general critique of Baʿthist rule in Syria. Indeed, she delves into the relationship between the individual and the state, and how people re-experience traumas they have suffered under the regime through remembering and bearing witness to its violence. Ismail uses a rather elaborate and sophisticated framework to explain the emotional impact of state violence in Syria. She employs Foucault's notion of “subjectivation,” as well as several other prevailing theories that have moved from the fields of literary criticism, anthropology, and sociology into political science and history.1 This methodology is carefully constructed and emphasized throughout the book—indeed it is a central component of the work. At the same time, Ismail's methodological lenses make the content difficult to follow, which may be a particular challenge for those who come to the book without an extensive prior knowledge of the history of the Asad era. There are relatively few historical works on this period in English,2 unfortunately, and yet Ismail seems to assume that readers would grasp her nuanced arguments about the period based largely on personal testimony.Ismail used material from film, literature, and poetry, interviews, memoirs, and other media, to offer the reader a profound sense of how Syrians remember events and live them today. William Faulkner famously said, “The past is not dead, it isn't even past,” and this is palpable in these pages. One reason Ismail includes fiction is to highlight the emotions or, throughout the book, the “affects” felt (and which continue to be felt) by victims of prison, torture, or lost loved ones.3 Ismail conducted more than 150 interviews over a span of about eight years. She was able to interview activists in one of the few genuine civil society organizations allowed to operate in Damascus from 2000 to 2005, the Atassi Forum, founded in the name of Jamal al-Atassi (1922–2000) and run by his daughter Suhair al-Atassi, who went on to become an early leader in the Syrian opposition in 2011.4 These activists, Ismail notes, were more open in their discussions with her than everyday citizens, who, even after exile, still lived in fear and carefully guarded their words (26).In just over 200 pages, Ismail discusses how violence shapes the state-subject relationship. Her work builds on the scholarship of Raymond Hinnebusch, Lisa Wedeen, and Yassin al-Haj Saleh to explain how subjects experience pervasive oppression,5 or as she emphasizes—the humiliation (dhul) of the regime's agents. As such, Ismail's book is not a traditional work of history, nor does it attempt to be one. Ismail primarily paints a picture of how past trauma affected Syrians, and how they remember specific aspects of the cruelty of the Syrian Baʿthist system.However, Ismail does not address the nature of Syrian governance during the past four decades of Asad dynastic rule. The struggle for power in Syria was an interplay between rational actors, according to Patrick Seale's first work The Struggle for Syria,6 but the author does not engage with his history. She also ignores the “Politics of Notables” framework that was adopted from Albert Hourani and applied by Hanna Batatu and Philip Khoury.7 Neither does she try to explain Syria in terms of sect-based movements, which is how Nikolaos Van Dam has explained Syria in his work. Rather, readers are expected to be somewhat familiar with the regime's struggle with the Muslim Brotherhood and other Sunni Islamists between 1976 and 1982 that culminated in the Hama Massacre, as well as recent violence that emerged after the 2011 uprising against the Asad regime. To bridge the gap, one ought to read works by Thomas Pierret and Raphaël Lefèvre, who delve into various aspects of the state-mosque conflict over the past four decades or so.8When it comes to torture, explored in depth in the first chapter, one begins to understand why Ismail chose to frame the discourse in a Foucauldian model that is sensitive to extreme power imbalances. Ismail notes in this vein that there is “a near consensus that [torture's] main objective is to break the subject's agency and sense of self and personhood through the infliction of embodied pain” (40). She emphasizes that the feeling of humiliation that comes from this externally induced pain serves to “destabilize the integrity of the self and undermine the capacities required for agency” (41). Here Ismail's use of “fictionalized accounts,” such as that of Mustafa Khalifa's The Shell (2008), lie at the heart of her depiction of life in the infamous (now destroyed) Tadmur prison (44–53), enhancing the impact of her work on the reader. While Ismail clearly points out her use of fiction, and even repeats this nearly every time a source is drawn from the genre of prison literature, she unfortunately did not separate her fictional and nonfictional accounts into distinct sections. This choice could turn off some readers who are looking for a more straightforward “Human Rights Watch”–style report on regime torture.Setting aside such qualms, it is important to note that Ismail's depiction of Tadmur prison is gripping. She does not shy away from prisoners' recollections of sectarianism, showing how deep social divisions were used by guards as a means to antagonize prisoners. She uses Arabic terms that are not easy to translate to provide cultural context for the psychological effects of abuse and torture on prisoners. One of the terms Ismail employs to spell out her notion of breaking the individual is kasr al-ʿayn meaning literally, “‘fracturing the eye’ so that the subject is rendered unable to look the guard in the eye” (46). Along with beatings, the prisoners are subject to blindfolding, “the banning of speech,” and restriction of body movements. In addition, basic bodily functions like, hunger, thirst, and the need to defecate are used as excuses for guards to beat the prisoners further. Ismael further describes sexual violence and vile or humiliating acts forced on prisoners that left deep scars on victims who survived. Disease and neglect were common causes of death in Syrian prisons—and it is uncertain if an accurate account will ever be possible due to the destruction of records in recent years.Ismail also draws wide comparisons with Stalinist Russia and Pinochet's Chile to underline the similarities and differences that Baʿthist Syria shares with other authoritarian contexts. Aaron Faust's recent book, The Baʿthification of Iraq, likewise, makes such comparisons, though neither Faust nor Ismail refers to the other's work.9 However, since Syria has more immediately in common with other authoritarian regimes in the Middle East and North Africa than it does with the formerly communist countries of Europe and Central Asia, it seems that there is still room for intraregional comparisons in the field. For instance, Ismail's discussion of the “liquidationist logic” used by the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, (55) hints at the type of politicide that the Asad regime employed against the Muslim Brotherhood (defined broadly in the late 1970s and early 1980s to include virtually all devout Sunni Arabs in Syria). This comparison may be apt, but there are plenty of other contemporary Arab leaders, such as Gamal ʿAbd al-Nasser who have cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood in certain instances, which would seem to be a more analytically direct comparison.Ismail goes on to detail structural forces that affect daily life in Syria in chapter 2, such as the zalamat al-amn, or “agent of the security forces,” who serves to create fear and extend the patronage networks of the state. Her work complements recent English-language translations of Yassin al-Haj Saleh's analysis of the shabiha (literally, ghosts, referring to pro-regime thugs) and other elements of Baʿathist secret police networks (mukhabarrat). She notes that while the state apparatus is broad and deep, new opportunities to work in the formal public sector declined in the 1990s (91). Ismail also describes the complexity of the state system, outlining the logic governing who receives and who is denied access to government benefits and services. Ismail carefully explains the pervasive fear of state security forces, and how that fear infiltrates into the private lives of Syrians. In each case, she highlights the emotional impact on individuals who must cope with everyday humiliation and the subjection to mundane elements of the state apparatus, which abuse with impunity, knowing that there is no way for individual citizens to appeal to higher justice.Chapter 3, “Memories of Life under Dictatorship: The Everyday of Ba‘thist Syria,” probes deeply into the indoctrination processes that Syrians were forced to undergo in the 1970s and 1980s, especially growing up in the heyday of Baʿathist youth movements. Many of Ismail's interviewees recalled negative experiences in the Shabiba (youth movement) and the National Union of Students, which began in the 1970s to indoctrinate young people in the Baʿthist ideology, as well as in the cult of Asad. There were unusual punishments, like being forced to crawl on one's stomach for any infractions of discipline. The guides were intolerant of any free thinking, and students were forced to recite slogans and pro-regime poetry.In the 1980s the state worked hard to ensure that citizens, and the youth in particular, were convinced of the evils of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Zionists, and utterly enamored with Hafez al-Asad. Yet beyond supporting externalized violence toward foreign entities, students were given the model of Hamida al-Taher, a seventeen-year-old who drove an explosive-laden vehicle into an Israeli Defense Forces–South Lebanon Army checkpoint in south Lebanon (107–8). Al-Taher was lionized by the state as a symbol of resistance, and apparently had written letters of support for Hafez al-Asad with her own blood, which were pictured and read on the air on Syrian television in the mid-1980s.Ismail notes the actual event in passing with few details. Naturally, as a historian, I looked in newspapers in Hebrew and Arabic from the period to find out more. Indeed, the pro-state daily newspaper Tishreen shows pictures of al-Taher in her military uniform on the front page of the paper on November 27, 1985. An internet search reveals more pictures of the “martyr” herself, her iconic image holding a rifle, and the letter she wrote with her own blood, praising Hafez al-Asad and noting her intention of becoming a martyr.10 Indeed, pro-Syrian reports, such as in the Lebanese paper as-Safir, published details of the operation. A dark blue Peugeot car was loaded with some 280 or 300 kilograms of explosive material, and the pro-Syrian reports emphasized that the base near Jezzin was “completely destroyed,” with some estimating that dozens of SLA fighters and Israeli intelligence officers were killed, along with all their military vehicles. However, the incident was downplayed in other Lebanese media reports, such as the Phalange (Ketaʾib) Party's al-ʿAmal, which had a page 4 mention of the event, noting that it only killed the young woman and injured one SLA fighter. Indeed, IDF records show that no Israeli died in Lebanon that day and, according to the Los Angeles Times of November 27, 1985, Israeli Army radio is cited as having said that only the woman died and one SLA fighter was wounded (exactly as al-ʿAmal noted). The IDF radio neither confirmed nor denied whether military vehicles were destroyed, as Syrian sources claimed. Mainstream Israeli print media at the time nearly ignored the event altogether, though a previous female suicide attack in April 1985 received wide media coverage.11The Hamida al-Taher case is one of many areas of historical fact where Ismail does not make any attempt to use documents to corroborate witness testimony. Syrian witnesses, obviously, will not be able to reveal what they were not allowed to know at the time. In an authoritarian regime facts are often suppressed or distorted to keep knowledge from the population and to promote an image of the world that suits the regime's symbolic purposes. Syrians who were educated in the 1980s could go their whole lives believing that the “martyr” Hamida al-Taher was a significant figure in the Lebanese Civil War, when in fact her suicide bombing did not change the course of events at the time. By contrast, Ismail does not mention, and it may be worth further research, that Hamida al-Taher's act was clearly orchestrated by the Baʿth Party to mimic a similar attack by the Syrian Social Nationalist Party's own “martyr” on April 9, 1985.12Another concept that Ismail turns to is that of “precarity,” in which dissidents in particular often have to walk the line between selective participation in symbols of the pervasive pro-government culture and an underground life of limited freedom. For instance, even dressing in a bohemian fashion would draw the attention of the security forces. Yet membership in the Baʿth Party might have given one access to higher education, so many Syrians tried to balance both membership in the party and subtle acts of dissidence—that is, until the 2011 Uprising, where citizens were pushed to choose active rebellion or total submission. Here, Ismail does not draw on potential secondary sources that question the absolute strength of the Asad regime in its wider political context and reveal that the regime was not only threatened by bohemian fashion, but in fact, also by a number of prominent left-wing activists who emerged to the fore in the late 1970s. Indeed, Hafez al-Asad and the Baʿth Party were in competition with several other political movements and subject to criticism, in particular, for its entry into the Lebanese Civil War on the side of the Maronites against the PLO in 1976.13In discussing the memories of Hama and “the events” from 1976 to 1982 that left tens of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands in prison, Ismail notes the complex interaction between the act of remembering what happened in the past, and ever-present psychological trauma experienced by those who lived through it (150). It is this complex zone where remembering violence (especially sexual violence) is different from remembering other types of personal tragedies, because it is visceral and intractable from an embodied experience. For instance, those Ismail interviewed recalled how certain foods would remind those who had lived through violence of the day a loved one was killed. This has been noted in other conflicts as well. However, it should be added, Ismail's sensitivity to the personal feelings of her interviewees and her attention to detail allows her study go in different directions than other studies on memory in the Middle East, such as Craig Larkin's work on memory in Lebanon.14 In his study, there is a greater emphasis on documentation, memorial sites that were created, including visual signs and statues that were erected, as well as a recollection of changing spaces, and the physical migrations that his interviewees recalled.Ismail, by contrast, also notes the importance of space in the recollection of past trauma, but she touches on feelings, such as humiliation, and even brings up mental illness and suicide related to lived trauma. In this sense, Ismail points out that her work was not meant to undermine documentary evidence, but merely to extend it beyond its limits. That is, to include “the lived experience and the formative and transformative work of violence” which “are not the object of … documentary works” (137). By choosing this route, Ismail seems to prioritize oral history over documented history, which is difficult to justify outside of a framework that emphasizes personal feelings and anecdotal evidence.In the last chapter before the conclusion, “The Performativity of Violence and ‘Emotionalities of Rule’ in the Syrian Uprising,” Ismail examines competing narratives. For instance, she notes the stereotypes about ʿAlawis, and shows that labels like shabiha or “terrorist” are used by each side of the post-2011 conflict to depict the Other. By describing the propaganda of both sides as a theatrical display, Ismail relays that “the performances entail a dialogue of sorts: messages are communicated through graffiti slogans, video statements, signature killings, patterns of mutilation and disfigurement” (184). Yet, in the reality of early 2011, the Syrians in the uprising were using graffiti, songs, and YouTube, while the other side was using machine guns and mutilation. The regime's suppression of the uprising led to the formation of self-defense bands, which attracted outside funding and eventually jihadi fighters from abroad and from the prisons of Bashar al-Asad leading to a full-scale armed rebellion. Throughout the conflict, the numbers show the vast majority of civilian deaths have been at the hands of the regime and its allies.15In the conclusion, Ismail notes that being sectarian was a charge that the regime made against the Muslim Brothers and vice versa from the 1970s onward. Ismail points out that some ʿAlawis clearly had more access to the “regime and apparatuses of power” (194) and moreover, the regime itself formed a ʿAlawi militia at a certain point. She includes the fact that many ʿAlawis were imprisoned and subject to violent interrogation if they showed any signs of disloyalty. This attempt at revising the narrative is welcome over the simplistic binary view that all ʿAlawis blindly support the regime and all Sunnis oppose it. Perhaps to dispel any doubt, the final two sentences of the book inform the reader where Ismail stands: “That dissent and political opposition were never fully banished is attested to by the continued centrality of incarceration, torture and killing to the conduct of government over the entire history of the Asad regime. The politics of elimination and eradication, made visible with the Uprising, lay at the heart of the system of rule” (201). Indeed, a systematic demonstration of this conduct requires a thorough examination of all kinds of evidence: witness testimonies, as well as audiovisual and documentary texts to dispel any attempts at whitewashing the crimes of the Asad regime.