Customer Reviews

Invisible Nation: How the Kurds' Quest for Statehood Is Shaping Iraq and the Middle East

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This book does two specific things:
1. Provides modern history of the Kurds, mainly the Kurds inside Iraq. This is not an all-encompassing Kurdish history book, although it does touch on some collective Kurdish events.
2. Provides needed perspective on U.S. operations in Iraq: post-1991 and the 2003- invasion. It shows the Kurdish opinion of U.S. intervention.

If you're looking for this scope of information, this is an excellent read. If you are looking for a complete history of all Kurds everywhere, this is not the book.

Having said this, Quil's writing style engages the reader and jumps to related events when necessary to help bring clarity. This is not a read that stiffly follows a chronological time line.

Some takeaways from this book:
1. Iraqi Kurds are independent as a nation already within "Kurdistan," probably since 1991, and we simply have not "officially" recognized them within an international venue (such as UN).
2. The coming choice for the international community will be to either ignore this, or take a leap and recognize the nation of Kurdistan, even if its borders are only within the confines of Iraq.

As a producer/director for British and American TV I have made numerous films in and about Iraq over the last five years, but Invisible Nation is a revelation to me. Like most people covering the tragedy, I have been distracted by the carnage in the south and Lawrence's book fills a gaping hole. He has been a regular visitor there since shortly before the US invasion and, as well as providing a potted history of Iraqi Kurdistan, he paints a vivid picture of the country, its people and its leaders. There is a wonderful breezy energy to his prose and by the end we feel not only informed but also emotionally involved in what happens there.

Lawrence was an eye-witness to many of the key events he describes and he talks us through the strange parallel history that has unfolded. As Sunni and Shia Iraq have descended into anarchy, the Kurds, largely un-noticed, have established the prosperous, peaceful, functioning democracy (rough and ready though it may be) that was supposed to be the goal all along. The paradox is that it is only the weakness of their southern neighbours that has enabled them to do so and, should the US succeed in restoring stability in the rest of Iraq, Baghdad will almost certainly try and re-establish its traditional control. The Sunnis can look for support to Saudi Arabia, the Shias to Iran. The Kurds have no-one to shake a stick on their behalf other than us, and we have always betrayed them in the past. The truly unforgivable final act in this tragedy, as we scuttle away from the disaster we have inflicted, would be to do so again as the price of peace.

Richard Sanders

Lawrence's insightful look at this little understood nation will open your eyes to events that led to America's invasion of Iraq. His first hand knowledge and in-depth research will introduce you to a cast of characters that underlay America's invasion and continue to influence events in the region. This eminently readable book will be referred to by historians for decades to come as America's misadventure is studied.
Lawrence's travels have clearly given him a great fondness for the region. In vivid language, Lawrence gives you a feel for the landscape and people of Iraqi Kurdistan. Several times while reading Invisible Nation I found myself thinking that I wanted to travel there. No other person has made me want to visit Iraq.
Buy this book!

This book was very helpful to me during my 1 year tour in northern Iraq working with the Kurds. I had the good fortune to meet a few of the individuals written about in the book. With rare exception I found the information in the book to be spot on. One glaring exception was the depiction of Karim Sinjari. I worked with him on many occasions and found him to be intelligent, well informed, deeply devoted to his people and not at all aloof or arrogant. Strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to gain a basic understanding of the situation there, particular if you are going to travel or work there.

This book was well written.
It was given as gift and was throughly enjoyed by the reader.
Hope to see more books written by the author in the future.

Very good book, but I could not in good conscience give it 5 stars as the Kindle version is riddled with typos and extraneous characters. It's probably not the author's fault, but sloppy publishing/editing. I can't count on both hands how many times "Fie" is written instead of "he".

The tale is fascinating, but it is a difficult read- only because of the "foreign" names of people, places and events. Having spent many months in the Kurdish provinces of Northern Iraq, this book was innvaluable in understanding the forces of history that created the Invisible Nation of our allies. Highly recommend this book to anyone traveling to the Kurdish region and anyone studying (or practicing) foreign policy.

This book presents a modern history of the Kurdish people, with most of the text focusing on the affairs of this people in the 20th century, especially under the regime of Saddam Hussein. The book provides a multi-faceted examination of the Kurds. First, it looks at the internal affairs of this people, and the long rivalry between its two political parties. Second, the book also examines the Kurds' relations to other powers, both near (Iran, Turkey, etc...) and far (USA, UK, etc...). The author takes pains to show how the Kurds' "foreign policy" was inextricably linked to its domestic situation, with specific Kurdish leaders occasionally siding with an outside force to gain leverage over fellow Kurds. Though technically a book about all the Kurds, the book focuses mainly on those living in what is now Iraq. Less attention is paid to the Kurds in Turkey, and even less to those living in Iran. For example, erstwhile Kurdish terrorist Ocalan is given minor treatment in this book amounting to less than a page of text. The book also avoids any anthropological analysis of the origins of this race, and essentially picks up with the career of Salahudin, the famous Muslim leader during the Crusades. All in all, a great book that makes for a lively and engaging read.

This is a good introduction to the politics of Iraqi Kurds. As always, consider this a single source no matter how well the references are and realize the author is close to the people. But overal, he appears relatively unbiased.

This book does a good job describing Kurdish history from the point of the Kurds! It also describes how America did the right things for all the wrong reasons!