Iraq: A History (Short Histories) Paperback – October 11, 2016

I thought this book was very good and well-written. Regarding the negative comments from other viewers regarding the author's treatment of Iraq since the US invasion, obviously some people are biased and are not capable of seeing the bad things their country has done. I am not highly knowledgeable about this subject, the only thing I would say is that it did seem the author did leave out any incriminating information showing that in regards to the problems post-US invasion Iraq has faced, there are Iraqis that bear some of the responsibility as well, in other words that their problems are not solely the US's fault.

This is an outstanding overview of the history of Iraq and the Middle East in general. There is a lot of content here which is paced nicely, but since it encompasses thousands of years of history, one can get lost in the details at times. Additionally, since it is a short history, you may be left with some questions on specifics which you will need to seek elsewhere for answers.I would recommend this work to any beginner to this area of history and to those who need a refresher. My few complaints are that the author fails to hide his bias towards past US foreign policy throughout the book which questions his objectivity at times. Additionally, there is little to mention of how the current administration has affected Iraq during the last eight years. Lastly, this is a book of the entire history of the region of Iraq, but about 1/4 of the work deals with “modern” Iraq or the twentieth century and beyond. I think more detail could have been provided on ancient Mesopotamia.Overall a great read from Professor Robertson.

Superlative, just short. The writing is so engaging it's hard to believe this is an academic history. There is enough to get the essence of Iraqi culture and how it differs from Iran and its Arab neighbors, and the only flaw is the book's modest length, I really wish the Author had more space to give us his expertise on this tragic country/civilization.

I have read this book with great interest. It fully explains the forces that have lead to the current state of affairs. It is well written and researched, and should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand what is going on in this region of the world.

Because this book deals with six thousand years of history in three hundred pages, the author must leave out a great deal of information. He is a deft narrator, but he shows a sneering anti-American attitude and a marked leftist bias .American and British soldiers came to Iraq "as standard-bearers of self-proclaimed great countries, cradles of liberty, freedom, and democracy, countries that were the embodiment of “good” and “civilization.”" The author wants to call the invasion a fraud, but what would he do about Saddam's well-documented record of aggression, evasion on nuclear efforts and cruelty in governance?"Since as far back as the third millennium BCE, Iraq has suffered disruption and at times catastrophe at the hands of alien migrants, foreign invaders, and conquerors, from mountain tribesmen sweeping into the Mesopotamian floodplain around 2250 BCE, to Alexander the Great’s phalanxes in the fourth century BCE, to the Mongol Khan Hulegu’s horde in 1258, to the European and American occupations from World War I to Operation Iraqi Freedom. " Many other invaders could be mentioned, as he recognizes elsewhere. Why specifically are Mongols bracketed with the recent Americans and Brits? Does he want to suggest that Americans, like Mongols, ransacked Baghdad?The author gives Islamic doctrine more space than seems appropriate. Muhammad appears as a sort of proto-socialist and a great believer in justice. "Muhammad’s insistence that there was only one true God obviously threatened the status of the Ka’ba, and therefore the profits of the local elite, who began then to persecute Muhammad’s followers." The author momentarily ignores that there were plenty of Jews (monotheists of course) living among the Arabs. (And how does monotheism cut into anybody's profits?)There is a crisp and fast-paced narrative of the confusion of peoples who swept over the Middle East from the seventh to the fifteenth centuries. All were Muslim, or became Muslim, except for the Crusaders. (They are not among the disrupters previously listed.) After World War the Ottoman empire was divided into Mandate territories, i.e., examples of what is now called "state-building", meant to gain independence once the League of Nations recognized that they could stand alone. Under its Mandate, Iraq was turbulent and became more so in the 1930's.. There were numerous rebellions and massacres of various minorities, such as Jews and Christians, without public indignation. Iraq sided with Nazi Germany during World War II. After the Mandates ended, there were numerous coups and coup attempts.After World War II, the Ba'athist ideology (Arab nationalism plus socialism) became the predominant political movement in Iraq. The problem with Ba'athism was that it enabled the growth of a "shadow government" of insiders, a kind of Mafia, which became the vehicle for the ascent of Saddam Hussein. The author spends no time on the harmful aspect of the Ba'ath, apparently considering it as a legitimate vehicle of Arab national pride. (My information on the shadow government is from 'Iraq' by Charles Tripp.)In fact, the only really major villains in the author's account are the Brits and Americans. Above all they are greedy for oil, even if this has been the greatest source of wealth for the Iraq. Even the American-led invasion of 2003 was supposedly motivated by oil. But this does not explain why the Coalition stayed in Iraq even after the country had been secured. It just wasn't possible to set up another Ba'athist and continue business as usual. It was the entire party, not just Saddam, that had to be subdued; hence L. Paul Bremer's "de-Baathification" effort and the expulsion from government of all Baathists. Saddam and his friends had accumulated too long a record of villainy. The author hints at this. "If Iraq’s history since 1932 is any guide, it remains uncertain whether a cohesive, sustainable, truly inclusive “Iraqi” identity that all of the people of Iraq can buy into can be built to last over the long haul."