Sam Dagher & Universes in THE MATRIX

Sam Dagher — by the small-world principle — is within 6 degrees of most humanity. The matrix uses the principle behind this phenomenon to position the world's artists within discoverable reach of each other, and the planet.
THESE CURATED NODES are one degree forward from this Sam Dagher node. Are these Sam Dagher's curations?

CURATION STATUS

1 degree forward: by The Matrix

Who & Where

Name: Sam Dagher
City/Place: Beirut
Country: Lebanon

Current News

What's Up? Assad or We Burn the Country
How One Family’s Lust for Power Destroyed Syria

In spring 2011, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad turned to his friend and army commander, Manaf Tlass, for advice about how to respond to Arab Spring-inspired protests. Tlass pushed for conciliation but Assad decided to crush the uprising — an act which would catapult the country into an eight-year long war, killing almost half a million and fueling terrorism and a global refugee crisis.

Assad or We Burn the Country examines Syria’s tragedy through the generational saga of the Assad and Tlass families, once deeply intertwined and now estranged in Bashar’s bloody quest to preserve his father’s inheritance. By drawing on his own reporting experience in Damascus and exclusive interviews with Tlass, Dagher takes readers within palace walls to reveal the family behind the destruction of a country and the chaos of an entire region.

Dagher shows how one of the world’s most vicious police states came to be and explains how a regional conflict extended globally, engulfing the Middle East and pitting the United States and Russia against one another.

Timely, propulsive, and expertly reported, Assad or We Burn the Country is the definitive account of this global crisis, going far beyond the news story that has dominated headlines for years.

Life & Work

Bio: Sam Dagher has reported in the Middle East for more than fifteen years. He was the only Western reporter based in Damascus from 2012 to 2014, until being detained by Assad’s henchmen in an underground prison and expelled for reporting deemed unfavorable to the regime.

He has worked for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor, and Agence France Presse, and has covered the conflict in Iraq, the Arab Spring uprisings, and Libya. The Wall Street Journal nominated Dagher’s work from Syria for the Pulitzer Prize and other journalism awards.

Contact Information

Email: sam@samdagherjournalist.com
Management/Booking: For interviews, speaking engagements, and events, please contact:
Sarah Fuentes
Fletcher & Co.
sarah@fletcherandco.com

Media & Markets

▶ Book Purchases: http://samdagherjournalist.com/the-book/
▶ Twitter: samdagher
▶ Instagram: dagher.sam
▶ Website: http://samdagherjournalist.com
▶ Articles: http://samdagherjournalist.com/journalism/
▶ Articles 2: http://www.theatlantic.com/author/sam-dagher/
▶ Articles 3: http://www.wsj.com/news/author/sam-dagher

Quotes, Notes & Etc. “As the only Western reporter based in Damascus during the early years of the civil war, Dagher has a rich perspective on the inner machinations of the regime of Bashar al Assad. In this important book, he lays out in grim detail the staggering cynicism and ruthless brutality of the Assad family. In doing so, he provides readers with a timely description of the dynasty that precipitated the destruction of a nation.”
- Clarissa Ward, Chief International Correspondent, CNN International

“The Syrian uprising has been one of the most consequential events in our new century-it has changed the world. Sam Dagher has been reporting from the heart of the crisis. His book, told through the eyes of two important Syrian insiders, a human rights activist and a former Brigadier General of the Syrian Republican Guard, is a vivid description of the crisis as it unfolded over the past 8 years. It is a must read for anyone who seeks to understand the complex world we are living in.”
- Dr. Zaher Sahloul, Syrian American doctor and President of MedGlobal

“A riveting chronicle from a courageous journalist who was there to witness and report the truth. A book that should deservedly garner significant award attention.”
- Kirkus, starred review

Clips (more may be added)

Sam Dagher, "Assad or We Burn the Country"
By Sam Dagher

202 views

Sam Dagher

THE MATRIX WAS BUILT HERE, inspired in (the kabbalah-inspired fiction of) Borges' El Aleph, that in the pillar in Cairo's Mosque of Amr, where the universe in its entirety throughout all time is perceivable as an infinite hum from deep within the stone.

The Brazilian "aleph" doesn't hum... it sings.

w/ David Dye for U.S. National Public Radio

Given the immense untapped power of the small-world phenomenon, from Brazilians the matrix was expanded to include nodes per jazz artists, given jazz's common roots with Brazilian music (nodes based in publicly available information; some artists we informed — Bob Mintzer, Kamasi Washington, David "Fuse" Fiuczynski, Vijay Iyer, Greg Osby — and got thumbs up, others we'll get to), and moved on from there. Artists/academics are welcome to create their own nodes and curate (connect to other artist nodes, so that others may follow). BTW, our logo is a cortador de cana, cane cutter. It was designed by Walter Mariano, professor of design at the Federal University of Bahia to reflect the origins of the music the shop specializes in.

MUCH MORE on all of this in the window below (which, if you are logged in, will instead contain instructions on recommending), and in the window within that window (which includes a "radio" called by The Guardian one of "10 of the best music radio stations around the world"):