Joshua Landis
American academic and Syria expert
Joshua M. Landis (born May 14, 1957) is an American academic who specializes in the Middle East and is an expert on Syria. He is the head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, and since 2004, he has published the blog Syria Comment.
Background
Landis was born on May 14, 1957, in Manhattan, New York City, New York. When he was one year old, his family moved to Saudi Arabia, where his father was sent by Citibank to open the first branch of an American bank in the country. After staying in Saudi Arabia for three years, Landis' family moved to Beirut, Lebanon, due to his father being transferred there to work as Citibank's vice-president for the Middle East. When Landis was ten years old, his family moved back to the United States.
Landis earned a BA from Swarthmore College, majoring in European History and French Literature. He spent his college sophomore year in France. After graduating, Landis then returned to Beirut in the midst of the Lebanese Civil War to teach at the International College, Beirut. According to Landis, his experience of living in Beirut during the civil war shaped his interpretation of the Syrian Civil War later on.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joshua Landis” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.