Suchergebnisse

The displacement of millions of Iraqi archival records to the United States in the 1990s and early 2000s generated considerable controversy about the legality and ethics of moving a country's archival records to another country, especially during wartime. Since 2020, however, most of these records have been returned to Iraq, though digital copies remain accessible in the United States in many cases. How does the repatriation of Iraqi archival documents impact the ethical arguments for and against researchers using the digitized copies of previously displaced archives? And now that records have been returned to Iraq, how can researchers continue to safeguard the identities of individuals named within these papers? This article summarizes the history of the legal and ethical controversies surrounding displaced Iraqi archives and proposes ethical considerations for researchers of Iraq to keep in mind while engaging in scholarship.

Abstract
This article presents rarely seen glimpses into life in the barracks of the Iraqi Army during the Gulf War (1990–91). We analyse fifteen diaries of Iraqi soldiers found in the Kuwait Dataset of the Iraqi Ba'th Party Archives, which was first opened to researchers in July 2015. These diaries shed new light on the mind-sets, ideological frameworks, morale and daily lives of Iraqi rank-and-file soldiers. We ask the following questions: did Iraqi soldiers support the invasion and occupation of Kuwait and accept Saddam Hussein's rationales for the war? How did Iraqi soldiers view the United States and its coalition partners? These diaries also provide clues about why so many retreating soldiers rose up against Saddam in country-wide protests one week after Iraq's defeat in the war. Although diaries from the US Civil War and the First and Second World Wars have been thoroughly examined by historians and literary scholars, few diaries of soldiers from the modern Arab world have been studied. This article fills an important gap in knowledge about the experiences of soldiers in modern authoritarian regimes and about the Gulf War.

Twenty years after the US invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of the Ba'thist regime, what kinds of historical narratives are starting to emerge among residents of Baghdad about the events of the recent past? How have their experiences with the new Iraqi state over the past twenty years colored Baghdadis' perceptions of what their lives were like under Saddam Hussein, and how are they making sense of the profound disruptions their city has undergone in the years since 2003? We conducted structured interviews with sixty residents of Baghdad across four different neighborhoods in December 2022 and January 2023 to better understand how Baghdadis are perceiving, interpreting, and narrating changes that have taken place in their neighborhoods during their lifetimes. In light of these interviews, we offer preliminary insights about the politics of memory in contemporary Baghdad: how history, memory, and collective identities intersect in different ways for Iraqis in different parts of the city. How do residents of different Baghdad neighborhoods identify and describe the "good times" and "bad times" of the recent past, and what factors are influencing the construction of their historical narratives?

Abstract
The Ba'thification of Iraq: Saddam Hussein's Totalitarianism, Aaron M. Faust (2015) Austin: University of Texas Press, 320 pp., ISBN: 9781447305577, h/bk, $55.00, p/bk, $29.95
Islamic Traditions of Refuge in the Crises of Iraq and Syria, Tahir Zaman (2016) London: Palgrave, Series: Religion and Global Migrations, 225 pp., ISBN: 9781137550057, h/bk, $59.99
Iraq: A History, John Robertson (2016) London: One World Publishers, 400 pp., ISBN: 978-1780749495, p/bk, $24.99
The Glubb Reports: Glubb Pasha and Britain's Empire Project in the Middle East. 1920–1956, Tancred Bradshaw (2016) Britain and the World, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 208 pp., ISBN: 9781137380104, h/bk, $100.00
The Emergence of Modern Shi'ism: Islamic Reform in Iraq and Iran, Zackery M. Heern (2015) London: One World Publication, 220 pp., ISBN: 9781780744964, p/bk, $30.00