My first war -- Mother of all battles -- The years of the sanctions -- Baghdad and the red room -- Hawassim, the decisive battle -- The statue -- Bakunin in Baghdad -- The viceroy -- Of exiles and militias -- The rebellion -- Karbala -- A street in Baghdad -- Fallujah -- The Collaterals -- The shrink -- Hameed -- Saddam's trial -- A civil war is born -- The spy -- The wedding -- The Baghdad morgue -- Migration, part 1 -- The Sunnis defeated -- The schoolteacher -- The Sadda -- Hassan -- The new leader -- The state of corruption -- Hassan and Maliki -- The Sunni Spring, Syria -- Enter the Jihadis -- The Sunni Spring, Iraqi version -- The Jihadi begin building a state -- We are coming to Baghdad and other delusions -- The collapse of the brave new army -- Fall of Mosul -- The Shia Mobilise for war -- Diala front lines -- The state -- The people resisting -- Migration, part 2 -- The Colonel -- Ali's war -- Aftermath -- Life and tragedy return to Mosul.
Summary:
This is not a book about Iraq's history or an inventory of the many Middle Eastern wars that have consumed the nation over the past several decades. This is the tale of a people who once lived under the rule of a megalomaniacal leader who shaped the state in his own image; a people who watched a foreign army invade, topple that leader, demolish the state, and then invent a new country; who experienced the horror of having their home fragmented into a hundred different cities. When the "Shock and Awe" campaign began in March 2003, Abdul-Ahad was an architect. Within months he would become a translator, then a fixer, then a reporter for The Guardian and elsewhere, chronicling the unbuilding of his centuries-old cosmopolitan city. Beginning at that moment and spanning twenty years, Abdul-Ahad's book decenters the West and in its place focuses on everyday people, soldiers, mercenaries, citizens blown sideways through life by the war, and the proliferation of sectarian battles that continue to this day. Here is their Iraq, seen from the inside: the human cost of violence, the shifting allegiances, the generational change.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.