Review Hanna Batatu, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq, A Study of Iraq’s Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of its Communists, Ba’thists and Free Officers, SAQI Books

  

Hanna Batatu’s The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movement of Iraq, A Study of Iraq’s Old Landed and Commercial Classes and of its Communists, Ba’thists and Free Officers is an all-time classic in Iraqi history. It is one of the early attempts to apply modern social science to the country. Batatu had extensive access to British, Iraqi government, Communist and Baathist papers along with interviews. Not only that it was published in English so it was accessible in the West. His main thesis was that the entrance of European capitalism into Iraq forever changed the economy and politics of the country and shaped the major events up the 1970s when his work ends.

Review Charles River Editors, The Mandate for Mesopotamia: The History and Legacy of British Occupation and Iraq’s Independence after World War I, Charles Rivers Editors, 2021

  

The Mandate for Mesopotamia is a short overview of British rule and influence in Iraq after World War I. It covers European imperialism in the Middle East before the Great War up to the 1941 Anglo-Iraq War. The history is generally well done but it missed the opportunity to draw parallels between the British and American occupations of Iraq at the end.

Review Arbella Bet-Shlimon, City of Black Gold, Oil, Ethnicity, and the making of Modern Kirkuk, Stanford University Press, 2019

  

Arbella Bet-Shlimon can be considered one of the new Iraq researchers who attempted to break free of the conventional wisdom that shaped much of the discourse about the country after 2003. Her City of Black Gold, Oil, Ethnicity, and the making of Modern Kirkuk takes a look at the political and economic development of the city from Ottoman times to the present. Rather than seeing the city as always being divided by competing ethnicities the book creates a history where Kirkuk was shaped by Turkey, England, Iraq, oil and where ethnicity changed over time.

Review John Glubb, Arabian Adventures, Ten Years of Joyful Service, Cassell, 1978

  

John Glubb was an English soldier and official in Iraq during the British Mandate. He was proud to serve the empire believing that it developed what he saw as primitive societies. At the same time he had some issues with the way that the Mandate was run. Most of his Arabian Adventure, Ten Years of Joyful Service is his impressions of Iraq’s tribal society which he believed was disappearing.

Review Edmund Candler, The Long Road to Baghdad, Volume II, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1919

  

Edmund Candler was a journalist who traveled with the British forces during the Mesopotamia campaign of World War I. This second volume of his book The Long Road to Baghdad covers the end of the war from 1917-1918. The vast majority of the writing is a blow by blow account of the various battles fought as the British conquered what would become Iraq. It does bring up larger issues however such as the lack of a strategy and the contempt the English had for the Ottomans and Arabs.

Review David Malone, The International Struggle Over Iraq, Politics in the UN Security Council 1980-2005, Oxford University Press, 2006

  

The International Struggle Over Iraq is a study by David Malone of the relationship between the United Nations, its permanent members and Iraq from the Iran-Iraq War to the U.S. occupation. The book is up and down in parts but the conclusions are sound. The author argues that from the 1980s-90s the U.N. was increasingly effective in dealing with Iraq because the great powers agreed on using it as a tool in their foreign policy but afterwards the U.S. and U.K. acted increasingly on their own sidelining the organization until it was largely irrelevant although Malone wouldn’t agree with that last point.

Review James Barr, A Line In The Sand, The Anglo-French Struggle For The Middle East, 1914-1948, W.W. Norton & Company, 2012

 

Barr, James, A Line In The Sand, The Anglo-French Struggle For The Middle East, 1914-1948, W.W. Norton & Company, 2012

 

In A Line In The Sand, The Anglo-French Struggle For The Middle East, 1914-1948 James Barr delves into the imperialist rivalry between England and France for control of the Middle East starting during World War I. When the war started the two powers wanted to carve up the Ottoman Empire with Paris having eyes on Syria and Lebanon and London on Iraq, Jordan and Palestine. Initially they agreed upon this division but then came into conflict. Barr presents a very interesting history of power politics, intrigue and terrorism that left neither nation happy.

Review Arnold Wilson, Loyalties Mesopotamia 1914-1917, A Personal and Historical Record, Oxford University Press, 1930

Wilson, Arnold, Loyalties Mesopotamia 1914-1917, A Personal and Historical Record, Oxford University Press, 1930

 

Arnold Wilson was a political officer for the British Expeditionary Force that invaded Mesopotamia in 1914 during World War I. His Loyalties Mesopotamia 1914-1917 details both the fighting in Iraq and how the English set up an administration to govern the conquered territories. Two main takeaways were how badly India managed the war and how much Wilson and the British resented the Arabs they came to rule over.

Review Aaron Klieman, Foundations of British Policy In The Arab World: The Cairo Conference of 1921, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970

Klieman, Aaron, Foundations of British Policy In The Arab World: The Cairo Conference of 1921, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970

 

At the end of World War I the English found themselves in possession of a large amount of Ottoman territory. London had made various promises to different groups which were often contradictory because it had no strategy for the region. In 1921 Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill organized a meeting in Egypt to attempt to find a solution to all these issues. The Cairo Conference came to shape much of the modern Middle East. That is the topic of Aaron Klieman’s Foundations of British Policy In The Arab World: The Cairo Conference of 1921. The author argues that Churchill was able to create a short term success for the British Empire which eventually collapsed.

Dennis Alexander Abbott, Operation Telic, And The Liberation of Iraq, From the Desert Rats to the Media War, Pen & Sword, 2024

Abbott, Dennis Alexander, Operation Telic, And The Liberation of Iraq, From the Desert Rats to the Media War, Pen & Sword, 2024

 

Operation Telic by Dennis Alexander Abbott is one of those books you keep on reading hoping something will happen but never does. Abbott was an English journalist who was called up for duty in 2003 for the occupation of Iraq. He served as a media officer for British forces in southern Iraq. It’s based upon his journal but unfortunately his experiences were mundane.

Review Adeed Dawisha, Iraq, A Political History from Independence to Occupation, Princeton University Press, 2009

Dawisha, Adeed, Iraq, A Political History from Independence to Occupation, Princeton University Press, 2009

 

Adeed Dawisha’s Iraq, A Political History from Independence to Occupation attempts to trace the history of the formation of the Iraqi state and its political system. He begins with the British Mandate when Iraq was created up until the middle of the U.S. occupation. His main theme is that Iraqi democracy has always been flawed.

Review Charles Townshend, Desert Hell, The British Invasion of Mesopotamia, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011

Townshend, Charles, Desert Hell, The British Invasion of Mesopotamia, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011

 

Charles Townshend’s Desert Hell is one of the better books about the British campaign in Mesopotamia during World War I. It not only covers the military side but the politics as well up to the creation of the British Mandate in Iraq after the war. His main thesis is that the war and the formation of Iraq were dysfunctional from the start because there was no political or military strategy behind them.

Review A Quest in the Middle East, Gertrude Bell and the Making of Modern Iraq

Lukitz, Liora, A Quest in the Middle East, Gertrude Bell and the Making of Modern Iraq, I.B. Tauris, 2006

 

In A Quest in the Middle East, Gertrude Bell and the Making of Modern Iraq Liora Lukitz attempts to paint the personal and professional life of Gertrude Bell. The story constantly switches back and forth between those two aspects using her correspondence as a uniting factor. The author portrays Bell as a woman who fled the constraints of her upper class family in England for the adventure of the Middle East where she helped create the country of Iraq.

Review A War Of Choice, The British In Iraq 2003-9

Fairweather, Jack, A War Of Choice, The British In Iraq 2003-9, Jonathan Cape, 2011

 

Jack Fairweather did an outstanding job describing England’s role in the Iraq War. He presents a story of a prime minister who believed he was on a moral mission when confronting Iraq. That led him to ignore the warnings he received about the problems with the U.S. war plans believing everything would work out. When things quickly went awry neither Prime Minister Tony Blair nor the British military provided any real leadership and quickly settled upon getting out of Iraq as quickly as possible which ended up dragging into a four year process. It was a complete fiasco.

Review Britain’s 2 Wars With Iraq 1941 1991

El-Solh, Raghid, Britain’s 2 Wars With Iraq 1941 1991, Garnet Publishing Limited, 1996

 

Raghid El-Solh’s Britain’s 2 Wars With Iraq 1941 1991 is a tale of two halves. It covers the Anglo-Iraq War which was part of the larger World War 2 conflict as well as the Gulf War. The author argues that England has historically attempted to maintain the status quo in the Middle East which came into conflict with various Iraqi leaders. The coverage of first war is quite good while the section on the Gulf War reads like Saddam era propaganda.

Review Cairo 1921, Ten Days That Made the Middle East

Faught, C. Brad, Cairo 1921, Ten Days That Made the Middle East, Yale University Press, 2022

 

The 1921 Cairo conference held by British Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill helped create the modern Middle East. Borders were drawn, kings were installed, and a new policy of neo-colonialism was created. That’s what C. Brad Faught’s Cairo 1921, Ten Days That Made the Middle East focuses upon.

Review Pride And Power, A Modern History Of Iraq

Franzen, Johan, Pride And Power, A Modern History Of Iraq, Hurst & Company, 2020

 

Pride And Power, A Modern History Of Iraq by Johan Franzen is a very dense history of Iraq from the Ottoman period to the present. It is chock full of detail after detail. There are some new bits of information relayed but the last third of the book that starts with the Gulf War falters. Its version of the 2003 invasion is especially disappointing making it an uneven book.

Review The Ins & Outs Of Mesopotamia

Lyell, Thomas, The Ins & Outs Of Mesopotamia, Washington DC: Westphalia Press, 2016

 

Thomas Lyell was a magistrate during the British Mandate in Iraq. The Ins & Outs Of Mesopotamia gives his views on Shiite Islam and why he believed that England should maintain its occupation of Iraq after World War I. On the one hand he was impressed by the devotion shown by Iraqi Shiites and dismissed Western criticisms of Muslims. On the other hand he was full of negative stereotypes about Muslims and argued that they were incapable of self-rule which was why the Mandate should continue.

Review U.S. Policy In Post-Saddam Iraq

Eisenstadt, Michael and Mathewson, Eric, Editors, U.S. Policy In Post-Saddam Iraq, Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2003

 

Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq the Washington Institute for Near East Policy realized the United States could learn a lot from the British time in the country starting in World War I. The Institute collected together a group of Iraq experts and had them write about the United Kingdom’s experience and then make suggestions for the Bush administration. The authors provided a good history and there were plenty of lessons for the U.S. to learn. As we all know the White House thought it had all the answers and carried out a costly and highly flawed occupation as a result.

Review The Iraqi Revolution Of 1958, The Old Social Classes Revisited

Fernea, Robert & Louis, Wm. Roger, The Iraqi Revolution Of 1958, The Old Social Classes Revisited, London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 1991

 

Hanna Batatu’s The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq is one of the most famous and thorough books on Iraqi History. It covers the emergence of the Iraqi state and society from British colonialism to the 1960s. This release The Iraqi Revolution Of 1958, The Old Social Classes Revisited came out of a conference in 1991 where papers were submitted to discuss what led to the 1958 coup in Iraq and its aftermath using Batatu’s work as the basis for their analysis. It is remarkable because every chapter is interesting something that is usually challenging to find in an anthology. The authors cover a variety of issues from British, American and Soviet policy towards the monarchy before its overthrow to the coup’s connections to other political movements in the Middle East to tribes and the development of Iraqi politics and culture. Some are straight forward histories while others are more theoretical. Each provides a very interesting look at how Iraq was transformed during this important period.