Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #138579 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-30
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 386 pages

About the Author
Charles Tripp is Professor of Politics with reference to the Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He is the General Editor of the Cambridge Middle East Studies Series and author of A History of Iraq (3rd Edition, CUP, 2007) and Islam and the Moral Economy: The Challenge of Capitalism (CUP, 2006).

Customer Reviews

An enlightening, lucid political history of modern Iraq
Charles Tripp has used his in-depth knowledge of Iraq's history and politics to produce a superb and very accessible analysis. Here is the result of serious scholarship and historical understanding distilled in a way that leaves this book's sensationalist rivals far behind.

Tripp shows how Saddam Hussein's politics derive not just from his own make-up but from a tradition in Iraq politics going back to the creation of the state in 1920. Throughout, a small Sunni Arab elite, and in particular the nationalist military officers among them, have been attempting to weld the British creation called 'Iraq' into a strong state. Thoughout, they were faced by the fundamental insecurity of the state and of their own regime. The way they dealt with this was to attempt to impose their own vision of the strong state they pursued, on the rest of society. Throughout also, they were prepared to use violence to do so, and to defend themseves from real or perceived challengers. Saddam has been more effective at this, and more brutal, than his predecessors.

In the process, Tripp shows, Iraqi society (tribes, Shi'ites, Kurds) has in many ways adapted to this pattern: groups and elites adjusted their strategies of survival, and of obtaining resources from the state, accordingly. At the same time, though, these regimes' use of violence and playing off various sections of the population against each other - in attempting to strengthen the state - reduced the chance of creating a cohesive Iraqi national identity, and genuine legitimacy for the regime. The indirect result, therefore, was a failure to achieve the original aim.

Of course, all such regimes and the groups suporting them also developed their own particular interests, material or otherwise, and all used patronage as well as fear to maintain their power base. Saddam Hussein's regime is merely the latest, and extreme, version of these patterns.

A review can't do this subject justice; read the book!

A serious academic book with a misleading title...
The title of this book is somewhat misleading. ‘A Political History of Iraq’ would perhaps be more appropriate. The author gives a very detailed account of the changes within each successive government since the Ottoman Empire. However, I was left with many unanswered questions about major historical events. For example, each of the World Wars is covered in only four pages. Additionally, there is very little description of any facet of Iraqi society and culture that does not have a direct bearing on political matters. This is a book written by a serious scholar for the benefit of other academics.

Despite reviews on the cover proclaiming the author’s style to be ‘very readable’, I found it to be a very heavy read. If you can understand words such as 'antithetical', 'inculcate', 'vitiated', 'polity', 'irredentist', 'intercine', 'obduracy' and 'bravura' without referring to a dictionary then this book may be for you. If you are a layman who just wants to learn about the overall history of Iraq, then look elsewhere.