Iraq Society and Culture Complete Report by
Need to know it all? Our all-inclusive culture report for Iraq will get up to speed on all aspects of culture in Iraq, including lifecycle, religion, women, superstitions & folklore, sports, holidays & festivals, and etiquette.
Handbook to Life in Ancient Mesopotamia by
For almost three thousand years, a succession of glorious communities flourished in ancient Mesopotamia. This book explores the culture of these great civilisations, which gave rise to literature, art, government, and urban life. It examines the daily lives of the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians, breathing life into the facts that modern-day archaeologists have unearthed about Iraq's past. Each chapter includes an extensive bibliography, as well as original line drawings, photographs, and maps. It combines archaeological and historical sources to provide a bounty of useful and fascinating information for anyone interested in the history, archaeology, religion, or culture of the ancient Near East.
Iraq by
An American attack on Iraq is justified / George W. Bush -- An American attack on Iraq is not justified / John E. Farley -- Liberating Iraq's people from a cruel regime justifies war / George W. Vradenburg -- Liberating Iraq's people does not justify war / Michael Massing -- A failure to find Iraq's weapons calls into question the justification for war / David Corn -- War was justified even if no weapons of mass destruction are found / Michael Schrage -- The war on Iraq heralded a positive new direction for American foreign policy / Thomas Donnelly -- The war on Iraq heralded a dangerous new direction for American foreign policy / Stephen Zunes -- The United States is failing to establish order in Iraq / Philip Carter -- The United States is successfully establishing order in Iraq / Vito Fossella -- The United States should embrace an imperialistic role in Iraq / Max Boot -- The United States should reject an imperialistic role in Iraq / Awad Nasir -- America must involve the United Nations in rebuilding Iraq / Joseph R. Biden, Chuck Hagel -- America should limit the United Nations' role in rebuilding Iraq / Nile Gardiner -- Iraq should have a secular democracy / Barham Salih -- The Iraqi people do not want a secular democracy / Amir Butler -- Iraq needs transitional rule by a strongman / Daniel Pipes -- Iraq needs a transitional government with dispersed powers / Laith Kubba -- The United States should permit Iraqis to elect an Islamic regime / Joan Ryan -- The United States should not permit Iraqis to elect an Islamic regime / Robert Garmong -- Iraq's prospects for democracy are good / Rend Rahim Franke -- Iraq's prospects for democracy are poor / Patrick Basham -- Iraq needs a federalist system of government / Alon Ben-Meir -- Iraq may need to divide into separate countries / Ralph Peters -- Iraq's oil resources can lay the foundations for future development / Daniel Yergin -- Iraq's oil resources may hinder future development / John B. Judis.
Iraq by
Thousands of years of history -- Iraq since the revolution of 1958 -- Baghdad, city of peace -- The last disciples of St. John the Baptist -- Near Baghdad -- From Baghdad to Najaf -- Karbala and environs -- Abraham, prophet and Iraqi -- From Baghdad to Basra, via Kut -- Basra, Venice of the Orient -- From Najaf to Basra -- From Baghdad to Mosul -- Hatra, city of the sun god -- Mosul and environs -- From Baghdad to Khanaqin (valley of the Diyala) -- From Baghdad to al-Haditha (upper Euphrates Valley) -- From Baghdad to Erbil, via Kirkuk -- The Kurdistan Autonomous Region.
Iraq: Current Controversies by 
Iraq Between the Two World Wars by
Why did a group from the Iraqi army seize control of the government and wage a disastrous war against Great Britain, rejecting British and liberal values for those of a militaristic Germany? What impact did these actions have on the thirty-year regime of Saddam Hussein? Departing from previous studies explaining modern Iraqi history in terms of class theory, Reeva Simon shows that cultural and ideological factors played an equal, if not more important, role in shaping events. In 1921 the British created Iraq, and an entourage of ex-Ottoman army officers, the Sharifians, became the new ruling elite. Simon contends that this elite, returning to an Iraq made up of different ethnic, religious, and social groups, had to weld these disparate elements into a nation. Pan-Arabism was to be the new ideological source of unity and loyalty. Schools and the army became the means through which to implant it, and a series of military coups gave the officers the chance to act in its name. The result was an abortive revolt against Britain in 1941. And the legacy of the revolt is still apparent in the next two generations of Iraqi officers that led to the regime of Saddam Hussein. This updated edition locates the sources of Iraqi nationalism in the experience of these ex-Ottoman army officers who used the emergent pan-Arabism to weld a disparate population into a nation. Simon shows that the relationships forged between Iraqi officers and Germans in Istanbul before WWI left deep legacies that go a long way toward explaining the disastrous war against Great Britain in 1941, the rejection of liberal values, the revolution of 1958 in which the military finally seized power, and the outlook of the leadership recently overthrown by American and British armies.
Dawn over Baghdad by
THIS IS A COMPLETELY FRESH, close-up look at the guerilla struggle in Iraq. It is built on weeks spent re-embedded with U.S. soldiers in the most dangerous parts of the Sunni Triangle in early 2004, direct polling of Iraqis, and unmatched reporting on combat raids, interrogations, daily diplomacy, and reconstruction heroics. It follows the author's "Boots on the Ground: A Month with the 82nd Airborne in the Battle for Iraq," which was the first book from an embedded reporter describing the toppling of Saddam Hussein. Gripping, perceptive, funny, and bluntly honest, "Boots" became the most popular chronicle of the hot war in Iraq. Now Karl Zinsmeister has again beaten the pack with this groundbreaking sequel on the counterinsurgency phase of the war. This is a powerful, cliché-smashing, up-to-the-minute report on America's most urgent national struggle, as seen through the eyes of ordinary Iraqis and the U.S. servicemen doing today's dirty work. "Dawn Over Baghdad" takes you into Iraq's urban neighborhoods, rural villages, and guerilla snake pits, and shows exactly how young American soldiers are quietly but inexorably choking off a terrorist insurrection and planting the seeds (sometimes at great personal cost) of a dramatically different Middle East. Zinsmeister brings home a fascinating, intimate, and insightful story missed by the major media: With the quiet cooperation of millions of everyday Iraqis, the U.S. is approaching something historic -- success in a tough guerilla war.
The Fall of Baghdad by
In the months leading up to the American invasion of Iraq, this New Yorker correspondent “embedded'himself among the people of Baghdad and, along with a small number of other Western reporters, rode out the entire invasion and much of the subsequent occupation from inside the city. Jon Lee Anderson's dispatches from Baghdad were immediately and widely recognized as the most important writing anyone was doing on the war anywhere, for any publication. In recognition of its significance, The New Yorker routinely held the magazine open an extra day and set up a special production team to deal with the pieces; around the office, comparisons to John Hersey's fabled article “Hiroshima” were flying. The Fall of Baghdad is not a collection of New Yorker pieces, though; it is an original and organically cohesive narrative work that tells the story of what the people of Baghdad have endured at the hands of Saddam Hussein, during the war and during its aftermath. This is not a pro- or anti-war book; the point is to bear witness to what the people in this city have endured, to put a human face on a calamity of epic dimensions. The focus alternates among a small cast of characters, a group of disparate Iraqis who allow Anderson to bring to life different facets of the story he wants to tell; and he fills in the canvas around his figures with rich background that makes their significance sing, and helps bind the book together as the definitive reckoning with one of the most fateful stories of our time.
The Iraq War and Its Consequences by
An extraordinary collection of essays by Nobel Peace laureates and leading scholars on the concluded Iraq War, The Iraq War and its Consequences is the First and Only book that brings together more than 30 Nobel Peace laureates and eminent scholars to offer opinions, analyses and insights on the war that has drawn both widespread opposition and strong support.In this intellectually captivating book, Professor Irwin Abrams, considered the leading authority world-wide on the history of the Nobel Peace Prize and Distinguished University Professor Emeritus at Antioch University, and Professor Wang Gungwu, renowned historian and Director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, have collected works of notable laureates and scholars from diverse backgrounds. The Nobel Peace laureates and eminent scholars, together, expound on the consequences and impacts of the Iraq War -- an effort that has not been made before. In conclusion, there are two sermons by Gunnar Stålsett, Bishop of Oslo.The Prominent Contributors are: Nobel Peace LaureatesTenzin Gyatso (The Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, 1989)David Trimble (MP, Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, UK, 1998)Jody Williams (International Ambassador of International Campaign to Ban Landmines, USA, 1997)Sir Joseph Rotblat (Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, UK, 1995)Jose Ramos-Horta (Foreign Minister of East Timor, 1996)Frederik Willem de Klerk (Former President of South Africa, 1993)Mairead Corrigan Maguire (Co-founder, Community of Peace People, Northern Ireland, UK, 1976)Bernard Lown (Co-founder, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, 1985)Peter Hansen (Commissioner-General, United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UN, 1945)Irene Khan (Sec-General, Amnesty International, 1977)Mary Ellen McNish (Executive Secretary, American Friends Service Committee, USA, 1947)Brian Philips of Oxford Brookes University (Quaker Peace and Social Witness, UK, 1947)Cora Weiss, President (Permanent International Peace Bureau, 1910)Christian Dominice (Sec-General, Institute of International Law, 1904)Eminent ScholarsNoam Chomsky (Prominent Political Critic, Professor of Linguistics, MIT)Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel laureate in Economics 2001, Columbia University)Richard A Falk (Albert G Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Emeritus, Princeton University)Sir John Daniel (UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education)John W Dower (Pulitzer Prize winner & Elting E. Morison Professor of History, MIT)Eric Stover (Director of Human Rights Center, UC Berkeley)Frank N von Hippel (Professor of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University)Lord Colin Renfrew of Kaimsthorn (Director of McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University)William Hartung (Director of Institute's Arms Trade Resource Center, World Policy Institute)Benjamin R Foster (Professor of Assyriology and Curator of the Yale Babylonian Collection, Yale University)Svetlana Broz (Sarajevo Cardiologist, Author and Lecturer)Faleh A Jabar (Iraq specialist and Research Fellow, Birkbeck College, London University)Lisa Martin (Professor of Government, Harvard University)Helena Cobban (Middle-East Specialist and Columnist for Christian Science Monitor)Mahmood Mamdani (Director of Institute of African Studies, Columbia University)Rosemary Foot (Professor of International Relations, Modern History, Oxford University)Robin Lakoff (Professor of Linguistics, UC Berkeley)Roland Paris (Political Science and International Affairs, University of Colorado at Boulder
Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf by
The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait will undoubtedly spawn numerous books on Iraq and its enigmatic president. This "instant" book written in 21 days by Miller ( New York Times ) and Mylroie (Harvard Univ.) attempts to combine historical analysis with timely journalistic reporting to provide the general reader with an informed analysis of the current crisis in the Gulf. The authors describe Saddam Hussein's meteoric rise to power in a lucid and easy-to-follow style. Although this book is recommended for general readers and public libraries, those interested in a more in-depth study of today's Iraq should consult Sad dam's Iraq: Revolution or Reaction? (Zed Bks., 1989) by the Committee Against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq.
Braving Iraq by
In the early 1990s, Saddam Hussein destroyed the Mesopotamian Marshes, once the richest wildlife habitat in the Middle East. Now one man is making an extraordinary effort to restore both animals and people to the scene of one of the greatest ecocides of the twentieth century. Is it a dream too far? Can man and animal live again in what remains one of the most politically troubled and dangerous place on Earth?
Iraq Uncovered (Frontline) by
Examine the forces vying for control of Iraq in the places where ISIS has been pushed out.
My Country, My Country by
Documentary providing an intimate portrait of Iraqis living under U.S. occupation. The principal focus is Dr. Riyadh, an Iraqi medical doctor, father of six, and Sunni political candidate who is an outspoken critic of the occupation but passionate about the need to establish democracy in Iraq. As his waiting room is filled daily with patients suffering the physical and mental effects of ever-increasing violence, Dr. Riyadh struggles to understand the tragic contradiction of the U.S. occupation of Iraq and its project to spread democracy through the Middle East.
No End in Sight by
An insider's look at the decisions that led to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the handling of the occupation. Based on over 200 hours of footage, the film provides a candid retelling of the events following the fall of Baghdad in 2003 by high ranking officials, as well as Iraqi civilians, American soldiers and prominent analysts. Examines the manner in which the principal errors of U.S. policy - the use of insufficient troop levels, allowing the looting of Baghdad, the purging of professionals from the Iraqi government and the disbanding of the Iraqi military - largely created the insurgency and chaos that engulf Iraq today.
The Road to War: Iraq by
Provides frank insight into the decision-making process that led to the invasion of Iraq. Reveals how internal rivalries, murky intelligence and the events of September 11 influenced one of today's most controversial conflicts. Details the internal debate and controversy surrounding the seismic shift in American foreign policy.
Saddam's Secret Tunnels by
Examine the underground labyrinth that stretches for miles below Bagdhad, believed to contain biochemical and nuclear weapons, torture chambers, prisons, escape routes, and bunker complexes for Saddam Hussein and his regime.
Saddam Hussein: Weapon of Mass Destruction by
Saddam Hussein: Weapon of Mass Destruction documents the lethal reign of the man who led Iraq for years until American led forces ousted him. The film features footage of those who fell victim to Hussein's tactics, and shows some of his most feared henchmen revealing their disturbing plans.
