Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Note on Transliteration
Introduction: A Return to the Old
1. "His Family Had a House in Malki, So We Thought He Was All Right": Socio-Spatial Distinction
2. "That Color Looks Great on You": Consumption, Display, and Gender
3. Old Damascus Commodified
4. Ramadan Lived and Consumed
5. Conservation, Preservation, and Celebration
Conclusion: Weapons of the Not-So-Weak
Epilogue: Of Hubble Bubbles and Cell Phones
Notes
References
Index

Promotional Information

An ethnographic exploration of consumption and social dynamics in a Middle Eastern city.

About the Author

Christa Salamandra is Associate Professor of Anthropology, Lehman College, City University of New York.

Reviews

"Filled with rare encounters with Syria's oldest, most elite families. Critics of anthropology's taste for exoticism and marginality will savor this study of upper-class Damascus, a world that is urbane and cosmopolitan, yet in many ways as remote as the settings in which the best ethnography has traditionally been done.... [Written] with a nuanced appreciation of the cultural forms in question and how Damascenes themselves think, talk about, and create them." - Andrew Shryock"