Donabed, S.G.: Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and Assyrians…
March 16th, 2015
Sargon George Donabed, Reforging a Forgotten History: Iraq and the Assyrians in the 20th Century
Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press/ Oxford University Press, 2015
ISBN: 978-0748686025
ho 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 its history? Furthermore, how have they negotiated their position throughout various periods of Iraq’s state-building processes? This book details a narrative of Iraq in the 20th century and refashions the Assyrian experience as an integral part of Iraq’s broader contemporary historiography. It is the first comprehensive account to contextualise a native experience alongside the emerging 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.
It has been reviewed in:
‘Sargon Donabed provides a comprehensive overview of the modern Assyrian story, merging emic and etic perspectives of their struggle to attain sovereignty over the past century and beyond. His work offers both an informative source for Assyrian ethnic history and an alternative reading for Mesopotamian regional history as a whole.’
Nabil Al-Tikriti, University of Mary Washington
‘In telling the story of modern Assyrian responses to a history of displacement and exclusion, Sargon Donabed helps us understand them as actors in their own right. He thereby rewrites Iraqi history from the perspective of the marginalized.’
Paul S. Rowe, Trinity Western University
Submission: Sargon George Donabed (Author), 12.3.2015
