Research Catalog

Kurdistan : in the shadow of history

Title: Kurdistan : in the shadow of history / Susan Meiselas ; with historical introductions and a new postscript by Martin van Bruinessen.
Author: Meiselas, Susan
Publication: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2008.

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Description

xvii, 429, [25] pages : illustrations (some color), maps (some color); 32 cm

Summary

Kurdistan was erased from world maps after World War I, when the victorious powers carved up the Middle East, leaving the Kurds without a homeland. Today the Kurds, who live on land that straddles the borders of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, are by far the largest ethnic group in the world without a state. Renowned photographer Susan Meiselas entered northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War to record the effects of Saddam Hussein's campaigns against Iraq's Kurdish population. She joined Human Rights Watch in documenting the destruction of Kurdish villages (some of which Hussein had attacked with chemical weapons in 1988) and the uncovering of mass graves. Moved by her experiences there, Meiselas began work on a visual history of the Kurds. The result, Kurdistan: In the Shadow of History, gives form to the collective memory of the Kurds and creates from scattered fragments a vital national archive. In addition to Meiselas's own photographs, Kurdistan presents images and accounts by colonial administrators, anthropologists, missionaries, soldiers, journalists, and others who have traveled to Kurdistan over the last century, and, not to forget, by Kurds themselves. The book's pictures, personal memoirs, government reports, letters, advertisements, and maps provide multiple layers of representation, juxtaposing different orders of historiographical evidence and memories, thus allowing the reader to discover voices of the Kurds that contest Western notions of them. In its layering of narratives--both textual and photographic--Kurdistan breaks new ground, expanding our understanding of how images can be used as a medium for historical and cultural representation. A crucial repository of memory for the Kurdish community both in exile and at home, this new edition appears at a time when the world's attention has once again been drawn to the lands of this little-understood but historically consequential people.

Subjects

Genre/Form

illustrated books.
History.
Illustrated works.
Pictorial works.
Pictorial works (form)
Ouvrages illustrés.

Note

Errata, p. 402.

Bibliography (note)

Includes bibliographical references (p. 395) and index.

Contents

Introduction by Susan Meiselas -- Before the great war : travelers and missionaries as witness -- From empires to nation-states -- Conflicting claims on eastern Turkey -- British occupation of Mesopotamia and the creation of Iraq -- Resistance to centralization in Iran -- Rebellions in Turkey -- Under the Iraqi monarchy -- The Kurdish Republic of Mahabad -- A Kurdish state -- Uneasy coexistence -- Order restored in Iraq -- The monarchy consolidates in Iran -- Behind the Iron Curtain -- Identity contested in Turkey -- Armed struggle for autonomy -- The republic of Iraq -- The Islamic revolution in Iran -- The military takes control in Turkey -- After the Cold War -- From genocide to safe haven in Iraq -- Polarization in Turkey -- Epilogue -- Postscript, ten years later.

ISBN

9780226519272
0226519279
9780226519289
0226519287

LCCN

2007041145

OCLC

ocn173683832
173683832
SCSB-1501419

Owning Institutions

Princeton University Library