Sweet Tea with Cardamom: A Journey Through Iraqi Kurdistan

by Teresa Thornhill



After the month-long Gulf War of 1991, Iraq's Kurdish minority began to rise against Saddam Hussein's regime, which had in previous years engaged in genocidal campaigns, including assaults with chemical weapons, that killed as many as 180,000 people. United Nations peacekeeping forces helped established a "safe haven" in Iraqi Kurdistan (a section of northern Iraq that runs along the borders of Turkey and Iran) and elections were soon held. Teresa Thornhill, an English barrister who became concerned with the plight of the Kurds through an ex-partner's personal connection to Iraq, took two trips to the region in 1993 to see for herself how the efforts at democracy were progressing. "The Iraqi Kurds claimed that they did not wish to establish an independent state," Thornhill writes. "Rather they wished to be part of a post-Saddam Iraq under a federal arrangement." But their efforts were hampered by the economic sanctions of the UN against Iraq, which affected them as well as Saddam, and Iraqi troops were poised at the edge of the border, ready to reclaim their land. In addition, rival Kurdish groups began engaging in violent conflict. Thornhill particularly concerns herself with the Kurdish women who survived Saddam's atrocities, but she encounters people from every level of Kurdish society. Her fascination with the region and its people is perceptible even in the restrained journalistic tone with which she recounts her journey.

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Primitive Rebels Or Revolutionary Modernisers?: The Kurdish Nationalist Movement in Turkey

by Paul J. White



Protests worldwide followed the capture and trial of the Kurdish nationalist leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999. Millions of people are now aware of the long fight by his PKK guerillas in Turkey. But where does the PKK come from? What are its aims? Who supports it? What will its future be without Ocalan to guide it? And, most important of all, is there now a real prospect for a peaceful resolution of the Kurdish question in Turkey? This critical examination of the Kurdish nationalist movement traces the PKK's evolution and its move towards becoming a mainstream mass political movement.

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The Kurdish Nationalist Movement in the 1990s: Its Impact on Turkey and the Middle East

by Robert Olson



The Kurds are the world's largest ethnic group without a nation of their own. Operating under a concept of nationhood that does not acknowledge the existence of ethnic minorities, the Turkish government views the Kurds as a threat to sovereignty. Along with Iraq and other nations in the region, they have crushed any formal attempts at nation-building. In the past months, the factional fighting among the Kurds has resurfaced as Baghdad supports the Kurdistan Democratic Party against the Kurdistan Worker's Party (provoking an American military response). The Kurdish Nationalist Movement In The 1990s: Its Impact On Turkey And The Middle East is an invaluable briefing on one of the middle east's most complex, enduring, and tragic conflicts threatening regional stability and the absorption of American military and humanitarian resources. -- Midwest Book Review --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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The Kurds (Creation of the Modern Middle East)

by Heather Lehr Wagner



A discussion of the people known as Kurds, including their history as well as their contemporary status in the Middle East.

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A People Without a Country: The Kurds and Kurdistan

by Gerard Chaliand

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.
"... meticulously researched... A great deal of current information is presented along with older history, and both blend together to make the anthology an excellent resource."

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A Fire in My Heart: Kurdish Tales

by Diane Edgecomb (Author), Mohammed M.A. Ahmed (Author), Ceto 0zel (Author)



The largest ethnic group without their own nation-state, there are an estimated 30-40 million Kurds living throughout the world today. The majority live in Kurdistan, a region stretching over parts of Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Syria. As a minority in these countries, the Kurds have struggled for independence throughout history and into recent times and have often been oppressed, persecuted and deported from their land. The purpose of this volume is to introduce readers to the Kurdish people, their cultural traditions and their stories. This unique collection, the first of its kind in English, features tales collected first-hand by the author during several years of travel to the Kurdish region of Turkey. A Fire In My Heart serves as a reference and program resource for educators and librarians, introducing students and the public to this ancient culture. The book is especially suited to those working with Middle Eastern children and their families in the US and abroad. From the Kurdish Cinderella story, "Fatima," and humorous animal tales to stories based on legendary figures, for example the Herculean Rusteme Zal, these thirty-three tales from the varied regions of Kurdistan and the four major dialects are a wonderful resource for storytellers, folklorists and scholars. After seven years recording Kurdish tellers and traveling to remote mountain villages the author provides a valuable collection of previously unpublished tales, traditional recipes and games. The book is augmented by stories translated and adapted from small tale collections in Kurdish, as well as rare color photos from Iraqi-Kurdistan in 1955 and recent photos of village life. Background information on the Kurdish people, their history, land and customs is provided. All levels.

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The Kurds. An historical and political study

by Hassan Arfa




Arfa was a loyal servant of the Peacock throne, but as an Azerbaijani he was sensitive to the tensions between ethnic identity and citizenship. He rejected Azerbaijani as well as Kurdish separatism but understood the sentiments behind it and wrote sympathetically on the Kurds at the time that the first modern armed Kurdish nationalist uprising was in progress in Iraq.