Understanding Iraq (PDF)

To understand Iraq, and the dynamics at work there, it is essential to know the country's history. This is self-evident to the point of being a cliché. But 12,000 years of history can be intimidating. In Understanding Iraq, one of the world's most respected Middle East spectators provides a highly readable yet intelligent digest, taking the reader on a sweeping tour from the first Sumerian settlements on to the Babylonians, the dramatic advent of Islam, the destructive invasion of the Mongols, centuries of Ottoman rule, into the turbulent twentieth century and today's experiments in Western styles of democracy. Fast-paced and full of vivid detail, Understanding Iraq helps the reader comprehend this complicated nation, struggling today to reconcile its diversities and contradictions: Arab and Kurd, Shi'i and Sunni, traditionalist and modern, secular and religious,
pragmatic and radical. Polk culminates in a damning indictment of the US for failing to learn the lessons of history in Iraq. He sets out those lessons here in a compelling and fascinating narrative.

"a sober and informed account of Iraq's history, culminating in a compelling critique of the U.S. intervention there" - Foreign Affairs

Mr Polk's learning allows him to delve deep into Iraq's history, making this by far the most absorbing and disturbing of the many recent books about the country. The thrust of Mr Polk's history lesson is not gentle: America is blundering in Iraq out of historical ignorance...Understanding Iraq has the authority which comes from formidable knowledge. - The Economist