South From Damascus

At the heart of his story is the Hijaz Railway, completed between Damascus in Syria and Medina in Arabia in 1908, but around this focus he paints a much broader canvas of the history of the region and the religions, pervasive and divisive, that help mold that history, even today, its physical setting and scenery, and its people. Though not a book about war, in this region wars are endemic, so included are incidents of massacre and forced migration. Neither is it a scientific report, though some geology and geography are included, simply because the author is a geologist, and that was why he was there, involved in a feasibility study for a new Hijaz Railway. And it is not intended as a tourist guide, but it does contain information useful to one traveling in the region, information the author wished he'd had when he first went there. In a sense South from Damascus is a travel story, for the thread that binds it together is that of the author's experiences and observations, told in the first person.