The Cambridge History of the Kurds is an authoritative and comprehensive volume exploring the social, political and economic features, forces and evolution amongst the Kurds, and in the region known as Kurdistan, from the fifteenth to the twenty-first century. Written in a clear and accessible style by leading scholars in the field, the chapters survey key issues and themes vital to any understanding of the Kurds and Kurdistan including Kurdish language; Kurdish art, culture and literature; Kurdistan in the age of empires; political, social and religious movements in Kurdistan; and domestic political developments in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Other chapters on gender, diaspora, political economy, tribes, cinema and folklore offer fresh perspectives on the Kurds and Kurdistan as well as neatly meeting an exigent need in Middle Eastern studies. Situating contemporary developments taking place in Kurdish-majority regions within broader histories of the region, it forms a definitive survey of the history of the Kurds and Kurdistan.

New York Times best-selling author Stephen Mansfield was witness to much of the modern history of the Kurds. In this riveting account, Mansfield movingly tells the stories of the people who have fashioned one of the greatest economic and cultural resurrections in human history. They are the largest people group in the world without a homeland of their own. Despised and persecuted the world over, they even call themselves "the people without a friend." Saddam Hussein tried to wipe them from the face of the earth, killing several hundred thousand of them in the attempt. Their sufferings have become legend. They are the Kurds, descendants of the ancient Medes best known today from the pages of the Bible -- inhabitants of what the world now calls Northern Iraq. Yet today the Kurds are rebuilding so brilliantly from war and oppression that even their enemies call it "a miracle." Six star hotels stand where bombs once fell, shopping malls and gleaming schools rise where massacres once occurred. National Geographic and Conde Nast have listed modern "Kurdistan" as a "must-see" tourist destination.

Examines the emergence of Syrian Kurds, who became game-changers in the Syrian civil war and potentially in Kurdish areas of other countries as well.

This unique and comprehensive book covers the whole history of the Kurds over the past seventy years. The Gulf crisis, its aftermath and its impact on the Kurds are thoroughly analyzed in newly added sections.

With an estimated population of over 30 million, the Kurds are the largest stateless nation in the world. They are becoming increasingly important within regional and international geopolitics, particularly since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Arab Spring and the war in Syria. This multidisciplinary Handbook provides a definitive overview of a range of themes within Kurdish studies. Topics covered include: Kurdish studies in the United States and Europe Early Kurdish history Kurdish culture, literature and cinema Economic dimensions Religion Geography and travel Kurdish women The Kurdish situation in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran The Kurdish diaspora. With a wide range of contributions from many leading academic experts, this Handbook will be a vital resource for students and scholars of Kurdish studies and Middle Eastern studies.

As American tanks came to a halt on the Euphrates at the close of the war against Saddam Hussein, President Bush called on the oppressed peoples of Iraq to rise up against their ruler. Thousands of peshmerga (Kurdish guerrillas) responded, seizing the towns and countryside of northern Iraq. But after Saddam signed the truce with the U.N. forces, he sent his surviving units north, slaughtering the lightly-armed Kurds and driving millions more into exile while the Allies stood aside. For the Kurds, it was one more betrayal in their long and tragic history. In No Friends but the Mountains, veteran Middle East journalists John Bulloch and Harvey Morris provide the only history of the Kurdish people available today. Ranging from their earliest origins to the aftermath of the Gulf War, Bulloch and Morris trace the course of the Kurds' past and identify the pressures that have denied them a state of their own for so many centuries. Numbering some sixteen million and spread across five countries, the Kurds are the world's largest nationality without a state--a people divided among themselves in their struggle for independence, the pawns of rival governments throughout history. Bulloch and Morris show how they were exploited by the Turks and the Great Powers in the days of the Ottoman Empire, how the British, French, and the new Turkish republic subverted Woodrow Wilson's promise of a Kurdish state in 1918, and how the Kurds' revolts and insurrections led to further repression. Later the peshmerga guerrillas were funded and manipulated by Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran, Israel, and the CIA--while the Turkish government has harshly repressed any signs of Kurdish identity, banning the use of the Kurdish language until only recently. Both Saddam and Khomeini's government sought to use the Kurds to their own advantage during the long Iran-Iraq War. Bulloch and Morris trace the history of the main Kurdish organizations, such as the PKK in Turkey and the KDP in Iraq, underscoring the divisions that are threatening Kurdish survival at a time when the Iraqi army stands poised to attack the "safe haven" established by the U.N. This authoritative, highly readable account details the story of the rebellion, exile, and return that followed the Gulf War, providing a critical historical perspective on these momentous events. Written by two leading Middle East journalists, No Friends But the Mountains offers the first history of the long-suffering people at the center of one of the world's most explosive conflicts.

While dramatic changes taking place in the Middle East offer important opportunities to the Kurdish century-long struggle for recognition, serious obstacles seem to keep reemerging every time the Kurds anywhere make progress. The large Kurdish geography, extending from western Iran to near the eastern Mediterranean, and a century of repression and denial have engendered various Kurdish groups with competing and at times conflicting views and goals. The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics, with an emphasis on continuity and change in the Kurdish Question, brings together a group of well-known scholars to shed light on this complex issue.

"Over ninety years since their absorption into the modern Iraqi state, the Kurdish people of Iraq still remain an apparent anomaly in the modern world - a nation without a state. In 'The Kurds of Iraq', Mahir Aziz explores this incongruity, and asks the pertinent questions, who are the Kurds today? What is their relationship to the Iraqi state? How do they perceive themselves and their prospective political future? And in what way are they crucial for the stability of the Iraqi state? In the wake of the Gulf War of 1991 in the face of the Iraqi state, the Kurds endeavoured to create a de facto state and to concretise and stabilise the institutions that would enable this. 'The Kurds of Iraq' thus examines the creation, evolution and development of Kurdish nationalism despite the suppression of its political and cultural manifestations. Through extensive interviews in the field, Aziz assesses the impact of recent history on the complex process of identity formation amongst Kurdish students at three of the nation's leading universities. He provides an in depth examination of students' socio-economic backgrounds, and their thoughts on and experiences of what it means to be Kurdish in the modern Iraqi state, and the impact this has on their perception of their language, culture and religion. Aziz's invaluable and extensive field research furthermore serves as a point of departure for an investigation into the relationship between national identity and historical memory in Iraqi Kurdistan and beyond. He thus analyses wider issues of the intersection and interdependency of national, regional, ethnic, tribal and local identities. He thus constructs an intimate portrait of the Kurds of Iraq, which will provide an important insight for students and researchers of the Middle East and for those interested the important issues of nationalism and ethnic identity in the modern nation state, and the impact these issues have on the stability of Iraq itself."--Bloomsbury Publishing.

In Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria, central governments historically pursued mono-nationalist ideologies and repressed Kurdish identity. As evidenced by much unrest and a great many Kurdish revolts in all these states since the 1920s, however, the Kurds manifested strong resistance towards ethnic chauvinism. What sorts of authoritarian state policies have Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria relied on to contain the Kurds over the years? Can meaningful democratization and liberalization in any of these states occur without a fundamental change vis-à-vis their Kurdish minorities? To what extent does the Kurdish issue function as both a barrier and key to democratization in four of the most important states of the Middle East? While many commentators on the Middle East stress the importance of resolving the Arab-Israeli dispute for achieving 'peace in the Middle East,' this book asks whether or not the often overlooked Kurdish issue may constitute a more important fulcrum for change in the region, especially in light of the 'Arab Spring' and recent changes in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

The position of the 19 million Kurds is an extremely complex one. Their territory is divided between 5 sovereign states, none of which have a Kurdish majority. They speak widely divergent dialects, and are also divided by religious affiliations and social factors. It has taken the tragic and horrifying events in Iraq this year to bring the Kurds to the centre of the world stage, but their particular problems, and their considerable geo-political importance, have been the source of growing concern and interest during the last two to three decades. There is a remarkable dearth of reliable and up-to-date information about the Kurds, which this book remedies. Its contributors cover social and political issues, legal questions, religion, language, and the modern history of Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria and the Soviet Union. The Kurds will be an invaluable source of reference for students and specialists in Middle East studies, and those concerned with wider questions of nationalism and cultural identity. It also offers extremely useful background information for those with a professional concern for the numerous Kurdish immigrants and asylum seekers in Western Europe and North America.