Customer Reviews

Banking on Baghdad: Inside Iraq's 7,000-Year History of War, Profit, and Conflict

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Banking on Baghdad claims to tell the story of Iraq for the last 7000 years.

It is very light on the first 6900 and the last 50. Over 99% of recorded history is reduced to meaningless cliche laced with pointless adjectives and adverbs - "the inherent prize of greater Mesopotamia essentially powered all the death and destruction that wracked the land" - and mind numbing repetition - "Mesopotamia never recovered from the Mongols. Never. Its civilisation had been robbed for the last time. This time it was permanent. After Hugalu, Mesopotamia descended into an age of desolation."

The book begins and ends with the US invasion of 2003 as experienced by a Lieutenant Colonel Hughes. Hughes is an orphan, in that he has no discernable relationship to anything or anyone else mentioned by the author.

The real focus is on the period from the late 19th century to the end of WW2, when the oil industry was getting off the ground and the Great Powers were jostling for position. And it is a great story - the British, French, and Germans all jockeying for position as the Ottoman Empire falls apart, and "Mr 5%" Calouste Gulbenkian getting a piece of the action no matter who ends up on top.

Especially interesting is the quick shift from Ottoman imperialism and the resented policy of "Turkification" of the Arab population, to British imperialism and a policy of "Indianization" (rule by the Indian Civil Service and plans to repopulate the region with Muslims from India). Thus many Iraqis rapidly switched from supporting the British in WW1 to the Germans in WW2.

Even in this period, though, Black makes some disturbing errors. Greece and Serbia were not Ottoman territories during the Balkan Wars, and Asquith was not British Prime Minister in 1918. These mistakes do not bolster confidence in Black's supposedly painstaking archival research. (Did you know that the Internet allowed people on opposite sides of the world to cooperate? Amazing, isn't it. And he tells you all about it. "MP George Lloyd", though, is a real person, not a reversal of the actual British PM in 1918.

If you are still interested, my advice is to borrow the book from your local library, and read the middle half.

How is it possible that the full story about Iraq has never been presented as it finally has been in this extraordinary book. Clearly, Mr. Black has conducted exhaustive research within the oil company archives and governmental records, revealing the real reason we have been in Iraq for 90 years--and that is: oil. The Red Line Agreement printed on the inside front cover is reason enough to purchase this compelling book, which I admit, I could not put down. Banking on Baghdad connected all the dots for me, and the picture was not pretty.

Iraq's present is a painful recapitulation of its past. Certainly it is history not forgotten but repeated none-the-less in sweeping rehearsals across 7,000 years. Edwin Black brings people to life with crisp reality, from our goose bump inspiring contemporaries struggling to keep the peace, like Lt. Col. Chris Hughes, to Genghis Khan, whose only interest was retaliation and retribution which he meted out with gruesome methodical dispatch. Iraq's history is that not only of those who began life there, but often of others who sometimes accidentally and sometimes deliberately became entangled there--sometimes as a cross roads and sometimes as a destination. Award winning author Edwin Black brings an exacting demand for verified and original source materials -- indisputable facts -- together with the richness, complexity and idiosyncrasies of the major players into a comprehensible and well founded look at what it is that we are doing in Iraq today, within a 7,000 year understanding. Both the scope and detail combined to make this a very special experience. What better way to prepare for thoughtful consideration of our nation's future relations and role in Iraq?

Although this book is described as a history of Iraq's last seven millennia, it would be more accurate to describe it as a history of Iraq's last 300 years with a few additional chapters. I read this book because I greatly respect Edwin Black's other phenomenal work as a historian, and was surprised to read a book of his that really doesn't differ much from other thorough histories of Iraq.

In fact this is the first book of Black's that I've read with which I have quibbles. Black accurately documents that Winston Churchill whole-heartedly approved the use of tear gas and poison gas to suppress Iraqi insurgents, but leaves it open whether the British actually did use poison gas against "recalcitrant" Iraqis. Another respected author writes that the British did use poison gas against querulous Iraqis. This would cast the Iraqis' hatred of the British in quite a different light. It also makes Black's book seem incomplete.

I am not sure that Iraq's history was so much more bloody than that of most other nations as Black posits, but rather suspect that Iraq has just been a little slower than most to leave that epoch of human history behind. If you need an introduction to Iraq's history in 400 pages or less, this is worth reading. But I am surprised, even shocked, to write that there are other books that I found to be better than Black's book.

This is a well researched, fascinating historical summary of the history of Mesapotamia, particularly Iraq. Edwin Black traces the internal and external influences on the region for the past 7,000 years. Those influences include imperialists, dynasties, geography, wealth, Islam, Christianity, holy men, holy warriors, fratricide, homicide, despots, slavery, conquerors, traitors, treaties, agreements, broken promises, barbarism, savagery, Sunnis, Shias, local politics, international politics, intrigue, war, profit, oil, financiers and much more. Baghdad's history has affected everyone. The weave runs through the likes of the Mongols, Muhammad, Lawrence of Arabia and Churchill, from Constantinople to Hitler, right down to the U. S. infantry soldier on the ground there today.

Black has taken on a project of epic proportions. In the book's introduction he confesses that a complete study of Iraq history would fill volumes and volumes. While he has tried to reduce the vast data to a readable portion, he hopes that you are spurred to your own investigation and study if so inclined. Nevertheless, you will be appropriately dazzled by the exhaustive research done by Black's world wide teams. The unprecedented access to private, university and governmental archives bestows Black's study with a unique, meticulous, scrupulous originality and veracity.

Clearly, oil has dictated the steps of Iraq in the modern era. Black makes that point convincing, not partisan. It is an obscure, murky trail that he follows and in the middle of the book Black bogs down in too much detail about the oil business, fraught with broken political and economic agreements. Particularly when he traces the involvement of shadowy C. S. Gulbenkian in the discovery and development of Iraq's vast oil deposits. Here Black had too much information and too much detail. His point was to illuminate the intrigue that infests every aspect of dealing with the various stakeholders in the area. This takes up a large portion of the middle of the book, but it is tedious and leaves you feeling the story is going off track. That is the only drawback. Still, I had to give it the highest rating.

There are marvelous similarities in today's headlines and past events in the area. Previous Jihad against Britain covering the same towns you read about today - Mosul, Najaf, Karbala. Brutal butchery, beheadings, dragging corpses through the streets. Sunnia against Shia. Retribution for cooperating with foreigners and infidels. Discouragement at civilian and military losses. Invasion, conquest, loyalty, treachery. Payout, sellout, locked out. It is all there.

This book should be read by every U. S. politician wrestling with the issues facing us in Iraq and it should be in every public library. You cannot understand today's headlines and events without this book. But caveat emptor..I found this book discouraging in predicting any democratic success for Iraq. I don't think Black intended to be discouraging at all. Simply illuminating and adding something to the historical record. However, it is never more clear that history repeats itself.

I strongly urge you to read this book.

This book sells itself as a history of Iraq over the last 7000 years, and I read it hoping to get a broader understanding of what is going on with the current Gulf War. I was sorely disappointed. The first five thousand years of Iraq's history are summed up in under 100 pages. The book then slows down and spends a lot of pages on the Ottoman rule of Iraq, followed by European rule. The book ends with a short synopsis of Iraq under Saddam Hussein and western (i.e. US) involvement through several presidential administrations. The one subject that received the most attention was understandably oil; specifically the politics and characters involved in it from 1900 - 1950.

The book misses or shortshrifts many key subjects. These include:

1. Religious life before Islam, and how Islam spread throughout Iraq. This spread involved conflict, and as such deserves greater mention in this book.
2. Man's effect on the environment, and how many of the conflicts in Iraq's history pre-1900 were related to control of water, farmland and trade routes.
3. Iraq under the rule of the Greeks around the time of Alexander the Great, and later under the rule of the Roman empire. This is important because many of the Jews and Christians now living in Iraq came there during the rule of the Roman Empire.
4. Iraq's long historical relations vis-a-vis the Persians and the Turks.
5. The history of Arab nationalism in Iraq starting from the 1800s up till the modern day.

Overall, the book could be better balanced in the subjects it covers and the time periods it covers. But what it does cover it does well. The book is well referenced, and easy to read. The relationships between Iraq and outside entities (people, corporations, and countries) are well-explained. Overall, a good book to read, but it does not live up to its title.

Black's fascinating account, as Patrick Clawson stated, brings Iraq's rich history vividly to life. The author has a wonderful ability to turn historical events, obscure to most Western readers, into a gripping story. He does this by giving the color of an important episode then racing forward to the next event he chooses to highlight--which makes Banking on Baghdad a great read but not particularly satisfying as a comprehensive history. A first part skips lightly from Hammurabi to the Mongol conquests and the Ottoman era, ending in the late nineteenth century. Next comes a detailed account of the pre-1914 great-power maneuverings to gain access to Iraq's oil resources, carried forward with an equally detailed description of World War I and the chaos that marked the transition to British rule. The story then skips forward, first to the Iraqi dalliance with Nazis in World War II and next to the anti-Semitic persecution that led Jews to flee to Israel soon after that state was established. The last twenty-five years seem not to interest Black, as he devotes less than ten pages to them.

Implicit in his account are themes that Black should have spelled out more clearly. He paints Mesopotamia--the Land between the Rivers--as a place with a unique history, one not particularly tightly bound into an "Arab world." He treats Islam as a rather small part of Iraq's history while conflict over resources is central to his tale. His Iraq is more shaped by oil--and especially by disputes over oil--than by Shi`ism, which seems appropriate given that few Iraqis were Shi`ite until the mid-nineteenth century (and Shi`ism then was strikingly different from today, with little role for ayatollahs). That being so, the opening chapter set in Najaf as the U.S. troops arrive in 2003 is jarringly out of place: Black's account is neither about modern Iraq nor about Islam's impact.

The standard of scholarship is excellent with ample use made of primary sources although Black offers some questionable judgments on matters peripheral to his main story.

Incredibly well researched and written - ties the past history to the current situation and includes corporate wrangling and corruption all leading to oil and money as reasons for being in Iraq - first such book out there

Edwin Black has done it again, placing 7,000 years of Iraqi history into extraordinary perspective, reminding us of the truth and revealing the newly discovered facts to create an indispensible chronicle of that troubled land and its relation to Britain, France and the United States. That said, the book is really devoted to the last 150 years, when the importance of oil sprang upon the world and Iraq slowly rose to the top of the western nations' agenda as the greatest petroleum source of the new 20th Century. Black's access to heretofore secret oil company archives and his resurrection of forgotten military accounts reveals that Iraq has been desired by the west only for one thing: oil. This book changed my entire thinking and I highly recommend it for anyone who wants to understand how we got into Iraq and whether we can ever get out.

The worst thing about this book is that it wasn't written three years ago before the war in Iraq started and read by everyone in the White House administration. Of course that isn't a valid criticism, but what is interesting about this book is how it ties together the events from Iraq's ancient past through to present day in a coherent and illuminating way to show how Iraq has arrived at its current condition and how understanding Iraq's history tells us so much about the situation in Iraq today.

A must read for anyone wanting to understand the bigger picture of Iraq.