Celebrated for its ancient water wheels, the town of Hama is located on Syria s longest river, the Orontes. Ottoman Hama was a stopover on the major north-south road of Syria as well as the center of a local economic zone of its own. Intertwined social networks linked townspeople to the peasants and pastoral nomads of Hama s hinterland. By the early twentieth century a few elite and notable families had come to dominate the political and economic life of Hama and its outlying villages, setting the stage for the city s dramatic entry into Syrian national life during the French Mandate and...