From the almost daily terrorist incidents, to difficulties encountered by the U.S. and coalition forces, to the changeover of power and sovereignty, today?s readers are fascinated by this war- torn country and its people. In this new edition, readers will find dramatic new photos and detailed maps, and new chapters on the invasion and subsequent military occupation, internal struggles and terrorism activity, ongoing controversies concerning weapons of mass, and much, much more. ? The only popular reference designed to give you a comprehensive yet accessible guide to Iraq ? New dramatic photos of combat, political upheaval, and significant events
I would have rated his book higher except for one glaring mistake which set my teeth on edge which is the reaction I get when someone scratches a chalkboard with their fingernails over and over again. On page 44 he says, "Like the Greeks who followed them, the Sumerian religions were pantheistic and their gods were anthropomorphic." Feeling like an idiot, I consulted another annoying feature of this book which are the little boxes that appear throughout the text with little "nuggets" of information. This one was "Desert Diction" and defined pantheism as, "...{The} belief in a group of gods where each represents a specific human action, or emotion, or a physical element, such as one for the sun, and one for the moon." Let me guess, a group of gods would be a pantheon (Greek pan means all; theos means god or gods), thus pantheon would mean all of the gods. I may be an idiot, but I am not in kindergarten. What this informational "nugget" has done is define polytheism (poly=many + theoi=gods) not pantheism. Pantheism means all is god; it equates god with the cosmos. I do have to give Tragert credit in that he misdefines pantheism consistently throughout the book. But if his defintion is correct, then all of my dictionaries are wrong, not to mention most if not all of the authors who have written on the subject like C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy Sayers, Aldous Huxley, etc...or I am really a Complete Idiot.
While this may seem to be a small thing, it is disconcerting nonetheless,and raises the possibility of other not quite so obvious errors and misdefintions that might slip by unnoticed. Despite these caveats and the annoying way it is set up, this Complete Idiot's Guide to Understanding Iraq is worth reading and is a useful tool.
