we are very fortunate to have with us christian sahner from princeton university. he is the author of "among the ruins: syria past and present". which you can purchase after his presentation. he will discuss today with us what is happening in syriac, what took place in the last four years. he will pay special attention to u.s. foreign policy, the growth of terrorism and especially isis, and all so the fate of minorities in syria. he is a historian who spent a number of years in the levant. he is a graduate of princeton university and studied at oxford as a road scholar. he has written for the wall street journal and the times literary supplement. for those of you who are frequent visitors to our meeting, knows the we try to reach out to experts, new faces, new ideas so we are in for a very exciting next 25 minutes and then we will open the floor to your questions and we have an overflow of questions from the overflow. >> thank you for coming. it is nice to be here. i have admired the wilson center added distance for a long time and it is a thrill to finally be spea

we are very fortunate to have with us christian sahner from princeton university. he is the author of "among the ruins: syria past and present". which you can purchase after his presentation. he will discuss today with us what is happening in syriac, what took place in the last four years.