[Marxism] Rahul Mahajan Iraq book recommendations

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Someone on the list asked about Iraq history books. The body of scholarship
in English is very small, so much that I feel reasonably confident in
saying that the best source for the modern era is "Iraq Since 1958: From
Revolution to Dictatorship," by Sluglett and Farouk-Sluglett (Batatu is
certainly the most comprehensive up to 1979, but is only for someone
seriously interested in the subject). Sluglett and Farouk-Sluglett are
rather good on Iraqi internal politics, terrible on Western "imperialism"
(their quotes), but that's the very part that is easiest to find elsewhere.
It was the source for much of Tariq Ali's historical material in "Bush in
Babylon."

Said Aburish's biography of Saddam, "Saddam Hussein: The Politics of
Revenge," is especially useful, since it gives a sense of why people
supported Saddam, and not simply of how brutal he was.

Probably the most comprehensive source on post-1991 foreign intervention
(sanctions, NGO operations, etc.) in Iraq is Sarah Graham-Brown's
"Sanctioning Saddam," which came out in 1999 -- written from a rather
mainstream liberal NGO perspective.

Anthony Shadid's new book, "Night Draws Near," is probably the best
post-occupation book, although long and diffuse. It is very focused on
helping the reader understand Iraqis, personally and with regard to some of
the Shiite internal politics, very non-focused on the politics of the
occupation as such.

R


________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism