Understanding Syria? The original title of this book seems provocative, but only in the eyes of those who reason and think of national histories in terms and according to the patterns of the European nation states. A quick search on the web reminds us how often the word Syria is associated, for the benefit of Italian readers, with the word "chaos". Actually, understanding Syria means not so much orienting in chaos as going to the roots of the confrontation between the European West and the Arab Middle East; beginning - if not from the Roman Province of Syria and the Ecumenical Councils which defined the dogmas of Christianity and the schism among the Churches - at least since the first Crusades which established in Syria the most important cornerstones of the Christian armies and forged the ideological-religious cohesion of the European States, also laying the foundations of the maritime, economic and commercial power of Venice.