Last Train from Damascus

From Leon: I have been living in Iraq for the last four years, and spent the best part of a decade in the Middle East. My friends there remind me that there’s never been true peace, but also that perpetual war is not the whole story either. There has always been co-existence between the many peoples of the region, and this has often been far more powerful than the conflicts. And, very occasionally, there are these moments upon which history hinges; glimpses of a greater stability, or unity, reaching across religions and ethnicities and borders. One of the most hopeful of all, in the first years of the twentieth century, was the promise of the Hejaz Railway. In spring 2024 I will follow its route through Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Israel exploring this promise.