Shatter the Nations

Shatter the Nations PDF Author: Mike Giglio
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1541742346
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301

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Book Description
Unflinching dispatches of an embedded war reporter covering ISIS and the unlikely alliance of forces who came together to defeat it. The battle to defeat ISIS was an unremittingly brutal and dystopian struggle, a multi-sided war of gritty local commandos and militias. Mike Giglio takes readers to the heart of this shifting, uncertain conflict, capturing the essence of a modern war. At its peak, ISIS controlled a self-styled "caliphate" the size of Great Britain, with a population cast into servitude that numbered in the millions. Its territory spread across Iraq and Syria as its influence stretched throughout the wider world. Giglio tells the story of the rise of the caliphate and the ramshackle coalition--aided by secretive Western troops and American airstrikes--that was assembled to break it down village by village, district by district. The story moves from the smugglers, traffickers, and jihadis working on the ISIS side to the victims of its zealous persecution and the local soldiers who died by the thousands to defeat it. Amid the battlefield drama, culminating in a climactic showdown in Mosul, is a dazzlingly human portrait of the destructive power of extremism, and of the tenacity and astonishing courage required to defeat it.

Shatter the Nations

Shatter the Nations PDF Author: Mike Giglio
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1541742346
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 301

Get Book Here

Book Description
Unflinching dispatches of an embedded war reporter covering ISIS and the unlikely alliance of forces who came together to defeat it. The battle to defeat ISIS was an unremittingly brutal and dystopian struggle, a multi-sided war of gritty local commandos and militias. Mike Giglio takes readers to the heart of this shifting, uncertain conflict, capturing the essence of a modern war. At its peak, ISIS controlled a self-styled "caliphate" the size of Great Britain, with a population cast into servitude that numbered in the millions. Its territory spread across Iraq and Syria as its influence stretched throughout the wider world. Giglio tells the story of the rise of the caliphate and the ramshackle coalition--aided by secretive Western troops and American airstrikes--that was assembled to break it down village by village, district by district. The story moves from the smugglers, traffickers, and jihadis working on the ISIS side to the victims of its zealous persecution and the local soldiers who died by the thousands to defeat it. Amid the battlefield drama, culminating in a climactic showdown in Mosul, is a dazzlingly human portrait of the destructive power of extremism, and of the tenacity and astonishing courage required to defeat it.

Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia

Review of the Civil Administration of Mesopotamia PDF Author: Iraq. Civil Commissioner
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
This paper gives an account of the civil administration of Mesopotamia during the British military occupation, that is to say, down to the summer of the present year (1920), when, a Mandate for Mesopotamia having being accepted by Great Britain, steps were being taken for the early establishment of an Arab Government. His Majesty's Government called for a report on this diificult period from the Acting Civil Commissioner, who entrusted the preparation of it to Miss Gertrude L. Bell C.B.E. (India Office, 3rd December 1920)

Baghdad Sketches

Baghdad Sketches PDF Author: Freya Stark
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 9780810160231
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
In the fall of 1928, thirty-five year-old Freya Stark set out on her first journey to the Middle East. She spent most of the next four years in Iraq and Persia, visiting ancient and medieval sites, and traveling alone through some of the wilder corners of the region.

The Christian-Muslim Frontier

The Christian-Muslim Frontier PDF Author: Mario Apostolov
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134413955
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
An examination of the civilisational interface between Christianity and Islam from the unique perspective as a zone of contact rather than a distinct boundary.

Illusions of Victory

Illusions of Victory PDF Author: Carter Malkasian
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190659440
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 281

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Book Description
In the immediate aftermath of the 2007 "Surge" of American troops in Iraq, the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) in Anbar Province was widely hailed as one of America's signature victories. US Marines and soldiers fought for years there, in grinding battles such as Fallujah and Ramadi that define the experience of Iraq. Eventually, the fractious tribal sheiks in that province, with the help of American troops, united in an "Awakening" that dealt AQI a stunning defeat. The Awakening's success argued that the United States could intervene in a war-torn country and, with the right strategy, bring stability and peace. It seemed to exemplify snatching victory from the jaws of defeat. A decade later, the situation in Anbar Province is dramatically different. In 2014, much of Anbar fell to the AQI's successor organization, the Islamic State, which swept through the region with shocking ease. In Illusions of Victory, Carter Malkasian looks at the wreckage to explain why the Awakening's initial promise proved misleading and why victory was unsustainable. Malkasian begins by tracing the origins of the Awakening, then turns his attention to what happened in its wake. After the United States left, Iraq's Shi'a government sidelined Sunni leaders throughout the country. AQI, brought back to life as the Islamic State, expanded in northern and western Iraq and quickly found a receptive audience among marginalized Sunnis. In short order, the progress that had resulted from the Awakening fell apart. Malkasian draws many lessons from Anbar. Chief among them, the most stunning of victories may not last. The fact that the leading model of success fell apart severely damages the idea that the United States can send the military to a country for a few years and create lasting peace. Even the most successful example was bound to deeper social, sectarian, and religious forces insensitive to temporary boots on the ground. From today's perspective, rather than decisive success, Anbar exemplifies how intervention itself is a costly, long-term project. The most brilliant victory could not escape this wisdom.

Fractured Lands

Fractured Lands PDF Author: Scott Anderson
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0525434445
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 191

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Book Description
From the bestselling author of Lawrence in Arabia, a piercing account of how the contemporary Arab world came to be riven by catastrophe since the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq. In 2011, a series of anti-government uprisings shook the Middle East and North Africa in what would become known as the Arab Spring. Few could predict that these convulsions, initially hailed in the West as a triumph of democracy, would give way to brutal civil war, the terrors of the Islamic State, and a global refugee crisis. But, as New York Times bestselling author Scott Anderson shows, the seeds of catastrophe had been sown long before. In this gripping account, Anderson examines the myriad complex causes of the region’s profound unraveling, tracing the ideological conflicts of the present to their origins in the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 and beyond. From this investigation emerges a rare view into a land in upheaval through the eyes of six individuals—the matriarch of a dissident Egyptian family; a Libyan Air Force cadet with divided loyalties; a Kurdish physician from a prominent warrior clan; a Syrian university student caught in civil war; an Iraqi activist for women’s rights; and an Iraqi day laborer-turned-ISIS fighter. A probing and insightful work of reportage, Fractured Lands offers a penetrating portrait of the contemporary Arab world and brings the stunning realities of an unprecedented geopolitical tragedy into crystalline focus.

The Formation of Modern Iraq and Syria

The Formation of Modern Iraq and Syria PDF Author: Eliezer Tauber
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135201250
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
This volume examines the impact of clandestine and overt political organizations in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq after World War I. It analyzes Amir Faysal's short-lived state in post-war Syria, relations between Syrians, Iraqis and Palestinians, and nationalist activity within Iraq.

The Battle for Al-Qaim and the Campaign to Secure the Western Euphrates River Valley

The Battle for Al-Qaim and the Campaign to Secure the Western Euphrates River Valley PDF Author: Nicholas J. Schlosser
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 56

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Book Description


The Kurds and the State

The Kurds and the State PDF Author: Denise Natali
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
ISBN: 9780815630845
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
In tracing the evolution of Kurdish nationalism, Denise Natali shows that, contrary to popular theories, there is nothing natural or fixed about Kurdish identity or the configuration that Kurdish nationalism assumes. Rather, Kurdish nationalism has been shaped by the development of nation-states in the region. Although Kurdish communities have maintained some shared sense of Kurdishness, Kurdayeti (the mobilization of Kurdish identity) is interwoven with a much larger series of identities within the "political space" of each Kurdish group. Different notions of inclusion and exclusion have modified the political and cultural opportunities of Kurds to express their ethnic identities, and opening the possibility of assuming alternative identities over time. With this book Natali makes a significant contribution to theoretical, empirical, and policy-based scholarship on the Middle East, the plight of the Kurds, ethnonationalism, and ethnopolitical conflict. Hers is the first comparative work to examine Kurdish nationalism as a function of diverse political spaces. As a vital addition to the literature in the field, this book will supplant a number of standard texts on the Kurds.

A Brief History of Iraq

A Brief History of Iraq PDF Author: Hala Mundhir Fattah
Publisher: Infobase Publishing
ISBN: 0816057672
Category : Iraq
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
Describes the history of Iraq, from its beginnings as the Sumarian civilization in Mesopotamia through the present day.