A History of Iraq | Charles Tripp | A definitive primer for those who would understand Iraq

A History of Iraq | Charles Tripp | Great book

books:

A History of Iraq

	A History of Iraq Charles Tripp Cambridge University Press, 2007 - 386 pages average customer review:based on 13 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

highly recommended

To understand Iraq, Charles Tripp's history is the book to read. Since its first appearance in 2000, it has become a classic in the field of Middle East studies, read and admired by students, soldiers, policymakers and journalists. The book is now updated to include the recent American invasion, the fall and capture of Saddam Hussein and the subsequent descent into civil strife. What is clear is that much that has happened since 2003 was foreshadowed in the account found in this book. Tripp's thesis is that the history of Iraq throughout the twentieth-century has made it what it is today, but also provides alternative futures. Unless this is properly understood, many of the themes explored in this book - patron-client relations, organized violence, sectarian, ethnic and tribal difference - will continue to exert a hold over the future of Iraq as they did over its past.

for more information click here

A definitive primer for those who would understand Iraq

A must read for any who would make or influence U.S. policy in Iraq. I began reading the first printing of this book while awaiting transportation into Iraq and finished while in-country. The author's readable history of the faux nation called Iraq is essential in helping to create perspective for the new Iraq scholar or for those who believe they already know it all. The reader will most likely encounter a feeling of dejavu while exploring the British occupation post-WWI. The prominent historical role of tribal shieks and secondarily, religous leaders may surprise Westerners more familiar with elected political power, but understanding who the "real" players are in the Iraqi drama helps one to understand many of the factors that have led to the current U.S. administration's difficulties in bringing western democracy to a people who have neither experienced democracy in the past, nor who exhibit a passionate desire to embrace it for themselves. There are several rather dry sections in the work, but it is worth wading through them to get to the essence of Iraq's history.

for more information click here

Great book

THis book gives the real history for Iraq and it makes the normal people understand the modern hostory of Iraq

A nice addition to the literature

There are a number of works that address the history of Iraq as this ought to inform American policy there: Toby Dodge's Inventing Iraq and Liam Anderson's and Gareth Stansfield's The Future of Iraq and Christopher Catherwood's Churchill's Folly come to mind. This is another in this excellent set of works.

Tripp traces Iraqi history--and its implications--from its status as three provinces in the Ottoman Empire (Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul), the British Mandate (covered so well by Catherwood's book), the early and later Hashemite Monarchy, the very brief "republic" (which term needs to be placed in italics) from 1958-1968, and the Ba'th rule (including Saddam Husain's dictatorship).

The details in this historical analysis provide extremely useful context for understanding the country called Iraq; it also helps inform us as to the challenges of creating a unified country that can produce a sense of "nationhood."

All in all, a good volume for those who want to understand the background to where we currently stand. . . .

for more information click here

Exhaustive and exhausting

The book was informative but overly pedantic. I didn't need to know the arabic name of every player in Iraqi history. My skin crawled every time the author used the word "narrative" (approximately once per paragraph). Examples: "Narratives that had made sense of people's lives in one setting were being overtaken by changed circumstances ...these new developments introduced a new narrative or trajectory into Iraqi political history...Narratives once thought suppressed or hopelessly marginalised could reemerge... ...could thus be confident of determining the narrative of the Iraqi state...a different narrative was unfolding in the armed forces...brought to an end one phase in the narrative of the Iraqi state...but the emerging narratives they seemed to embody were always limited...ignored in the dominant narratives of the Iraqi state...and thus from playing any significant role in a narrative dominated by those who enjoyed the privilege...Saddam Husain and his dictatorship are the manifestations of a particularly potent narrative in the history of the Iraqi state - a narrative in which...it was acknowledged that minor narratives of non-Arab peoples, such as the Kurds, had also figured in the dominant narrative of the Iraqi nation." Could have been better edited.

for more information click here

Exactly what I was looking for

I needed a concise, easy to follow, wide-angle-lens introduction to the history of Iraq, and this book has been great so far (I'm about halfway through). It's dry in places and tends toward the academic, but that's to be expected in a serious history. I recommend it for those looking for a greater context for the daily news about Iraq.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3

products you might be interested in