>>34685
I've read some on that in the Internet, never had the idea of reading on a book. Also researched the first years of the war, which are hard to get information on, and analytical essays on how the regime maintains its power. They mostly have an anti-regime bias.
For example: https://tcf.org/content/report/assads-broken-base-case-idlib/?agreed=1
Assad relies on a network of local protégés on every city, and in areas lost to the rebels this network has been uprooted, making it harder to reestablish authority as they are reconquered.
https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/the-last-king-of-syria-the-feudalization-of-assads-rule/
Assad still has more brute force than his militias but has to balance his need for their military power with their side-effects such as popularity loss; occasionally this means disbanding and suppresing militias.
https://international-review.org/the-syrian-regime-turns-on-its-patrons-rami-makhloufs-fall-from-grace/
The wealth of a loyalist oligarch had to be cannibalized to pay debts to Russia.
https://international-review.org/assad-or-we-burn-the-country/
Lengthy multi-part writing on reconstruction, oligarchs, militias, welfare, polarization and so on.

>I wonder why the book starts at 1975/76. Hafez al-Assad came to power five years earlier, and the ruling Ba'ath Party seized control in '63. Was their occupation of Lebanon so important? Maybe the reason for the starting date is in the Preface or something.
Lebanon is a very complicated subject, even more than Syria. Alliances changed all the time, at one point Hafez and Israel were in the same camp. I haven't delved into it, it's a headache to try to understand.
>Since 2002 Syria is massaged by the US, accusing her with supporting terrorists
For a time during the Iraq War Bashar was complacent to Iraqi insurgents across the border.
>while civilian unrest was going on
You might look into the roots of unrest in the hinterland. Rural areas in particular were in a poor condition in 2011. There was decades-old environmental degradation in the steppe, which was opened to massive herds instead of just what the Bedouins had. Bashar conducted needed reforms, cutting subsidies and moving to cash crops, but in the short term this made farmers suffer. And since 2006 there was drought. Climate has effects on the war itself, sandstorms are good for ISIS and the like as they eliminate other side's air cover and this was particularly damaging for besieged airbases. The war itself helps cause sandstorms as it leads to less land being cultivated and cared for.