East of the Grand Ummayad

Sami Moubayed is a Syrian historian who recently served as a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut. His research focuses on Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is also a research fellow at St. Andrews University in Scotland and a co-founder of its Syrian Studies Center. He is an expert on pre-Baath Syria. Moubayed served as editor-in-chief of Forward Magazine, Syria s premier English monthly from 2006 to 2011. In 2004, he co-founded SyrianHistory.com, the first online museum of Syrian history for which he continues to work as chief editor. From 2000 to 2001, Moubayed served as bureau chief for the Daily Star in Syria and since 2005 has taught international relations at the University of Kalamoon in Syria, where he currently serves on the board of trustees. He is also vice president of Haykal Media in Syria. Moubayed has written several books, including Damascus Between Democracy and Dictatorship (University Press of America, 2000), Steel & Silk: Men and Women Who Shaped Syria 1900-2000 (Cune Press, 2005), and Syria and the USA: From Wilson to Eisenhower (IB Tauris, 2012). Moubayed's work-in-progress, Quwatli: The George Washington of Syria, is scheduled for a 2015 release from Cune Press. Moubayed studied at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and obtained his PhD in Middle East Affairs from the University of Exeter.