No Friends But the Mountains - Softcover

John Bulloch

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140167080 ISBN 13: 9780140167085

Publisher: Penguin Uk, 1993

Synopsis

Using the post-war Iraqi-Kurdish rebellion as a starting point, this book provides a history of the Kurds which touches particularly on the period since the break-up of the Ottoman Empire. The book includes discussion of who the Kurds are, historically, culturally and anthropologically, as well as a brief account of Kurdistan during the Middle Ages, under the dynasty of Saladin. The bulk of the book describes the troubled history of the Kurds since World War I.

About this title

About the Author

About the Authors:
John Bulloch has been diplomatic correspondent of the BBC World Service, Middle East correspondent for the Daily Telegraph, Middle East editor of the Independent, and diplomatic editor of the Independent on Sunday. Harvey Morris was chief correspondent for Reuters in Tehran and Beirut and is deputy foreign editor for the Independent. Bulloch and Morris wrote The Gulf War: The History of the Iran-Iraq Conflict and Saddam's War.

From Publishers Weekly

Numbering more than 20 million, the Kurds--the world's largest minority without a state--live in an area the size of France, united by a common culture and a distinct language but divided by the frontiers of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Lebanon and Russia. When the Kurds of Iraq rebelled against Saddam Hussein during the Gulf war, they were led to expect aid from the West; but Saddam launched a campaign of vengeance that included unrestrained use of chemical weapons while the international community looked on in virtual silence. In this well-researched, accessible study, Bullock and Morris, coauthors of Saddam's War , show how--but not why--Kurdish history has been dominated since antiquity by political betrayal and that the Kurds have often been victims of their own squabbles. The closest the disputatious tribespeople have come to a unified action, according to the authors, was during the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s when the Kurds of Turkey, Iran and Iraq rose up briefly against the governing powers. Nor is a pan-Kurdish political movement likely, they add, in the foreseeable future. Photos.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin Uk
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0140167080
• ISBN 13: 9780140167085
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 280