The Iraqi Revolution of 1958

The Iraqi Revolution of 1958
Author: Juan Romero
Publisher: University Press of America
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2011
Genre: History
ISBN: 076185259X

This book advances the argument that the events of July 14, 1958, when Iraqi military officers overthrew the British-installed Iraqi monarchy, constituted simultaneously as a coup and a revolution for a number of reasons, including military involvement, popular participation, and policies that radically departed from those of the previous regime.

The Iraqi Revolution of 1958

The Iraqi Revolution of 1958
Author: Robert Alan Fernea
Publisher: I.B. Tauris
Total Pages: 266
Release: 1991-04-22
Genre: History
ISBN:

"The Iraqi revolution of 1958 was a landmark in the history of the Middle East. Only two years after the Suez Affair, when pan-Arab sentiments were riding high throughout the region, a group of nationalist officers of the Iraqi army overthrew the monarchy and esetablished a republican regime. This book assesses the causes and the social, political and economic consequences of the revolution which destroyed the old social order and led, after a protracted political struggle, to the rule of the Baath Party and since the late 1970s, Saddam Hussein. The inspiration of the study is Hanna Batatu's major work on the social and economic bases of Iraqi politics. 'The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq (1978)'. The book concludes with a chapter by Batatu on class structure in Iraq, the role of the communists and nationalists in emancipating Iraq from British control, and the link between the revolution of 1958 and the crisis of 1990-1. Essays from leading scholars of contemporary Iraq analyse in detail the transformation of the Iraqi state. The contributors are: Norman Daniel, Wm. Roger Louis, Nicholas G. Thacher, Frederick W. Axelgard, Joe Stork, Rashid Khalidi, Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Slughett, Robert A. Fernea, Roger Owen, Abdul-Salaam Youssif, Sami Zubaida and Hanna Batatu. There is a preface to the book by Albert Hourani"--Publisher's description p. [2] of dust jacket.

The Iraq Wars and America's Military Revolution

The Iraq Wars and America's Military Revolution
Author: Keith L. Shimko
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2010-04-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 052111151X

This book is a comprehensive study of the Iraq Wars in the context of the revolution in military affairs debate.

Reclaiming Iraq

Reclaiming Iraq
Author: Abbas Kadhim
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2012-11-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0292739265

While some scholars would argue that there was no “Iraq” before King Faysal’s coronation in 1921, Iraqi history spans fourteen centuries of tribal communities that endured continual occupation in their historic homeland, including Mongol invasions in the thirteenth century and subsequent Ottoman and British invasions. An Iraqi identity was established long before the League of Nations defined the nation-state of Iraq in 1932. Drawing on neglected primary sources and other crucial accounts, including memoirs and correspondence, Reclaiming Iraq puts the 1920 revolt against British occupation in a new light—one that emphasizes the role of rural fighters between June and November of that year. While most accounts of the revolution have been shaped by the British administration and successive Iraqi governments, Abbas Kadhim sets out to explore the reality that the intelligentsia of Baghdad and other cities in the region played an ideological role but did not join in the fighting. His history depicts a situation we see even today in conflicts in the Middle East, where most military engagement is undertaken by rural tribes that have no central base of power. In the study of the modern Iraqi state, Kadhim argues, Faysal’s coronation has detracted from the more significant, earlier achievements of local attempts at self-rule. With clarity and insight, this work offers an alternative perspective on the dawn of modern Iraq.

The Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921

The Creation of Iraq, 1914-1921
Author: Reeva Spector Simon
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 262
Release: 2004-12-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0231509200

Leading scholars consider Iraq's history and strategic importance from the vantage point of its residents, neighbors (Iran, Turkey, and Kurdistan), and the Great Powers.

The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq

The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq
Author: Hanna Batatu
Publisher: Saqi
Total Pages: 964
Release: 2012-11-01
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0863567711

This comparative study analyses the traditional elite of Iraq and their sucessors - the Communists, the Bathists and Free Officers - in terms of social and economic relationships in each area of the country. The author draws on secret government documents and interviews with key figures, both in power and in prison, to produce an engrossing story of political struggle and change. 'A landmark in Middle Eastern historical study' Roger Owen, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 'By far the best book written on the social and political history of modern Iraq' Ahmad Dallal, Professor of Middle Eastern History, Stanford University

The Iran–Iraq War

The Iran–Iraq War
Author: Williamson Murray
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2014-09-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1139993216

The Iran-Iraq War is one of the largest, yet least documented conflicts in the history of the Middle East. Drawing from an extensive cache of captured Iraqi government records, this book is the first comprehensive military and strategic account of the war through the lens of the Iraqi regime and its senior military commanders. It explores the rationale and decision-making processes that drove the Iraqis as they grappled with challenges that, at times, threatened their existence. Beginning with the bizarre lack of planning by the Iraqis in their invasion of Iran, the authors reveal Saddam's desperate attempts to improve the competence of an officer corps that he had purged to safeguard its loyalty to his tyranny, and then to weather the storm of suicidal attacks by Iranian religious revolutionaries. This is a unique and important contribution to our understanding of the history of war and the contemporary Middle East.

From Dictatorship to Democracy

From Dictatorship to Democracy
Author: Hamid al-Bayati
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2014-01-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0812290380

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title Today, Hamid al-Bayati serves as Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations. But for many years he lived in exile in London, where he worked with other opponents of Saddam Hussein's regime to make a democratic and pluralistic Iraq a reality. As former Western spokesman for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), and as a member of the executive council of the Iraqi National Congress, two of the main groups opposing Saddam's regime, he led campaigns to alert the world to human rights violations in Iraq and win support from the international community for the removal of Saddam. An important Iraqi diplomat and member of Iraq's majority Shia community, he offers firsthand accounts of the meetings and discussions he and other Iraqi opponents to Saddam held with American and British diplomats from 1991 to 2004. Drawn from al-Bayati's personal archives of meeting minutes and correspondence, From Dictatorship to Democracy takes readers through the history of the opposition. We learn the views and actions of principal figures, such as SCIRI head Sayyid Mohammed Baqir Al-Hakeem and the other leaders of the Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi and his Kurdish counterparts, Masound Barzani and Jalal Talabani. Al-Bayati vividly captures their struggle to unify in the face of not only Saddam's harsh and bloody repression but also an unresponsive and unmotivated international community. Al-Bayati's efforts in the months before and after the U.S. invasion also put him in direct contact with key U.S. figures such as Zalmay Khalilzad and L. Paul Bremer and at the center of the debates over returning Iraq to self-government quickly and creating the foundation for a secure and stable state. Al-Bayati was both eyewitness to and actor in the dramatic struggle to remove Saddam from power. In this unique historical document, he provides detailed recollections of his work on behalf of a democratic Iraq that reflect the hopes and frustrations of the Iraqi people.

The Iran-Iraq War

The Iran-Iraq War
Author: Pierre Razoux
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 679
Release: 2015-11-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0674088638

From 1980 to 1988, Iran and Iraq fought the longest conventional war of the twentieth century. The tragedies included the slaughter of child soldiers, the use of chemical weapons, the striking of civilian shipping in the Gulf, and the destruction of cities. The Iran-Iraq War offers an unflinching look at a conflict seared into the region’s collective memory but little understood in the West. Pierre Razoux shows why this war remains central to understanding Middle Eastern geopolitics, from the deep-rooted distrust between Sunni and Shia Muslims, to Iran’s obsession with nuclear power, to the continuing struggles in Iraq. He provides invaluable keys to decipher Iran’s behavior and internal struggle today. Razoux’s account is based on unpublished military archives, oral histories, and interviews, as well as audio recordings seized by the U.S. Army detailing Saddam Hussein’s debates with his generals. Tracing the war’s shifting strategies and political dynamics—military operations, the jockeying of opposition forces within each regime, the impact on oil production so essential to both countries—Razoux also looks at the international picture. From the United States and Soviet Union to Israel, Europe, China, and the Arab powers, many nations meddled in this conflict, supporting one side or the other and sometimes switching allegiances. The Iran-Iraq War answers questions that have puzzled historians. Why did Saddam embark on this expensive, ultimately fruitless conflict? Why did the war last eight years when it could have ended in months? Who, if anyone, was the true winner when so much was lost?