Five years have passed since the author''s last visit to Syria, the subject of his now-classic The Street Philosopher and the Holy Fool, and he now finds Syria a much darker and more troublesome place. To make matters worse, Abed and Sulayman, the street philosopher and holy fool of his previous travelogue, are estranged, and only manage a sort-lived and shaky truce to please their English friend. Kociejowski is a metaphysical journalist in search of echoes rather than analogies, hints as opposed to verities, and who discovers once again among the outcasts at the periphery of Damascene society n for the outcast is, to a degree, made of the very thing that rejects him n a way to understand the clashes and challenges and changes refashioning both Syria and the Middle East as a whole. Beautifully written, The Pigeon Wars of Damascus is essential reading for anyone who wishes a deeper and truer understanding of the Middle East and the political and economic pressures currently refashioning it, and reminds us once again of the deeper purpose of travel: to absorb and understand the spirit of a place, and to return changed.