{"product_id":"2940169296259","title":"Brothers of the Gun: A Memoir of the Syrian War","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA bracingly immediate memoir by a young man coming of age during the Syrian war, \u003ci\u003eBrothers of the Gun\u003c\/i\u003e is an intimate lens on the century's bloodiest conflict and a profound meditation on kinship, home, and freedom.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 2011, Marwan Hisham and his two friendsamp;mdash;fellow working-class college students Nael and Tareqamp;mdash;joined the first protests of the Arab Spring in Syria, in response to a recent massacre. Arm-in-arm they marched, poured Coca-Cola into one another's eyes to blunt the effects of tear gas, ran from the security forces, and cursed the country's president, Bashar al-Assad. It was ecstasy. A long-bottled revolution was finally erupting, and freedom from a brutal dictator seemed, at last, imminent. Five years later, the three young friends were scattered: one now an Islamist revolutionary, another dead at the hands of government soldiers, and the last, Marwan, now a journalist in Turkish exile, trying to find a way back to a homeland reduced to rubble.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBrothers of the Gun\u003c\/i\u003e is the story of a young man coming of age during the Syrian war, from its inception to the present. Marwan watched from the rooftops as regime warplanes bombed soldiers; as revolutionary activist groups, for a few dreamy days, spray-painted hope on Raqqa; as his friends died or threw in their lot with Islamist fighters. He became a journalist by courageously tweeting out news from a city under siege by ISIS, the Russians, and the Americans all at once. He watched the country that ran through his veinsamp;mdash;the country that held his hopes, dreams, and fearsamp;mdash;be destroyed in front of him, and eventually joined the relentless stream of refugees risking their lives to escape.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eBrothers of the Gun\u003c\/i\u003e offers a ground-level reflection on the Syrian revolutionamp;mdash;and how it bled into international catastrophe and global war. This is a story of pragmatism and idealism, impossible violence and repression, and, even in the midst of war, profound acts of courage, creativity, and hope.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47150224933104,"sku":"2940169296259","price":17.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940169296259_p0.jpg?v=1763775527","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940169296259","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}