After reading The Battle For Syria: International Rivalry In The New Middle East written by Christopher Phillips I will here provide a few comments on the book.

The purpose of the book is to portray the involvement of external organisations and countries in the Syrian civil war and the influence (or lack of) they have had in the conflict.

This purpose is fulfilled in a compact format of 262 pages with an extensive amount of references in the appendix. The writing is on-point and the chapters has subsections of limited size making the content for each section very specifc and easy to pick up.

This is a great book for anyone wanting to understand the reasoning behind the external actors involved in the Syrian civil war and how they have shaped the conflict. The reader will also gain a better understanding of the upcoming events in the ongoing conflict.