Assyrian Struggle For National Survival In The 20th And 21st Century

Who are the Assyrians and what role did they play in shaping modern Iraq? Were they simply bystanders, victims of collateral damage who played a passive role in the history of Iraq? And how have they negotiated their position throughout various periods of Iraq's state-building processes?This book details the narrative and history of Iraq in the 20th century and reinserts the Assyrian experience as an integral part of Iraq's broader contemporary historiography. It is the first comprehensive account to contextualize this native people's experience alongside the developmental processes of the modern Iraqi state. Using primary and secondary data, this book offers a nuanced exploration of the dynamics that have affected and determined the trajectory of the Assyrians' experience in 20th century Iraq.

During the twilight years of the Ottoman Empire, the ethnic tensions between the minority populations within the empire led to the administration carrying out a systematic destruction of the Armenian people. This not only brought 2,000 years of Armenian civilisation within Anatolia to an end but was accompanied by the mass murder of Syriac and Greek Orthodox Christians. Containing a selection of papers presented at The Genocide of the Christian Populations of the Ottoman Empire and Its Aftermath (1908–1923) international conference, hosted by the Chair for Pontic Studies at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, this book draws on unpublished archival material and an innovative historiographical approach to analyze events and their legacy in comparative perspective. In order to understand the historical context of the Ottoman Genocide, it is important to study, apart from the Armenian case, the fate of the Greek and Assyrian peoples, providing a more comprehensive understanding of the complexity of the situation. This volume is primarily a research contribution but should also be valued as a supplementary text that would provide secondary reading for undergraduates and postgraduate students.

For a brief period, the attention of the international community has focused once again on the plight of religious minorities in Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. In particular, the abductions and massacres of Yezidis and Assyrians in the Sinjar, Mosul, Nineveh Plains, Baghdad, and Hasakah regions in 2007–2015 raised questions about the prevention of genocide. This book, while principally analyzing the Assyrian genocide of 1914–1925 and its implications for the culture and politics of the region, also raises broader questions concerning the future of religious diversity in the Middle East. It gathers and analyzes the findings of a broad spectrum of historical and scholarly works on Christian identities in the Middle East, genocide studies, international law, and the politics of the late Ottoman Empire, as well as the politics of the Ottomans' British and Russian rivals for power in western Asia and the eastern Mediterranean basin. A key question the book raises is whether the fate of the Assyrians maps onto any of the concepts used within international law and diplomatic history to study genocide and group violence. In this light, the Assyrian genocide stands out as being several times larger, in both absolute terms and relative to the size of the affected group, than the Srebrenica genocide, which is recognized by Turkey as well as by international tribunals and organizations. Including its Armenian and Greek victims, the Ottoman Christian Genocide rivals the Rwandan, Bengali, and Biafran genocides. The book also aims to explore the impact of the genocide period of 1914–1925 on the development or partial unraveling of Assyrian group cohesion, including aspirations to autonomy in the Assyrian areas of northern Iraq, northwestern Iran, and southeastern Turkey. Scholars from around the world have collaborated to approach these research questions by reference to diplomatic and political archives, international legal materials, memoirs, and literary works.

Reference book on politics in the Middle East in the 20th century - includes short biographies of leading politicians, and covers historical and military aspects, social implications, ethnic groups, religions, languages, wars, treatys, etc. Illustrations, maps and statistical tables. Biographys, politicians.

Third edition of Charles Tripp's authoritative history of Iraq.