Memories of State: Politics, History, and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq [Paperback]

Eric Davis (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520235460 | ISBN-13: 978-0520235465 | Publication Date: February 28, 2005 | Edition: 1

Despite being securely entrenched in power and having suppressed all political opposition, the Ba'thist regime that ruled Iraq from 1968 to 2003 still felt the need to engage in a massive rewriting of the nation's history and cultural heritage--in both its high and popular forms. As this book makes clear, the regime's effort to restructure understandings of the past was an attempt to expunge a powerful tendency in the Iraqi nationalist movement that advocated cultural pluralism, political participation, and social justice. Based on interviews with Iraqi intellectuals under the regime of Saddam Husayn, and with Iraqi expatriates and on publications from Iraq both before and during Ba'thist rule, Memories of State is an eye-opening look at one of the most important and misunderstood countries in the Middle East. This timely study also asks what the possibilities are for promoting civil society and a transition to democratic rule in post-Ba'thist Iraq.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Eric Davis eschews traditional histories of Iraq that have tended to emphasize political personalities and struggles amongst them, and focuses instead on the relationships between culture and political control, civil society and state institutions, and intellectuals and policy makers. The result is an innovative and multi-layered analysis that is a pleasure to read." - Adeed Dawish, author or Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair"

From the Inside Flap

"Eric Davis eschews traditional histories of Iraq that have tended to emphasize political personalities and struggles amongst them, and focuses instead on the relationships between culture and political control, civil society and state institutions, and intellectuals and policy makers. The result is an innovative and multi-layered analysis that is a pleasure to read."--Adeed Dawish, author or Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair

"Eric Davis's book is a truly impressive tour de force of the cultural history of modern Iraq and the political struggles over the appropriation of national culture and memory. It is based not only on meticulous and detailed research, but also a thorough familiarity and sympathy with Iraqi society. Davis offers a particularly valuable cultural and intellectual history of modern Iraq, a country that has appeared in Western public discourse primarily in terms of its geo-political aspects and the bloody regime which ruled it until recent times."--Sami Zubaida, author of Law and Power in the Islamic World

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 397 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press; 1 edition (February 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520235460
• ISBN-13: 978-0520235465
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #483,198 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Memories of State, May 7, 2007

By 

Michael Rubin "Middle East Quarterly" (Washington, DC) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Memories of State: Politics, History, and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq (Paperback)

In a publishing atmosphere saturated by instant Iraq experts, Rutgers University political scientist Davis presents a rare work of careful scholarship. Memories of State examines the intellectual tyranny of the Baath in Iraq, tracing its efforts to undue the cultural pluralism which once characterized Iraqi society.
Davis begins by describing how Ottoman reform, Iranian constitutionalism, and nascent Arab nationalism combined to shape an Iraqi intelligentsia. With time--and especially after independence--the Arab nationalist trend gained strength. Intellectual Iraq was not homogenous, though. While Shi'ite intellectual life was vibrant, it oriented itself more around the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala and toward Iran than to the nascent state.
While it would be an exaggeration to call Iraqi political culture tolerant, its early years were marked by cultural pluralism. Not only Muslims but also Jews and Christians participated in state and society. This political culture began to fracture in the 1930s. By allying themselves with the military, which they saw as a force to impose reform, Iraqi progressives opened a Pandora's box of coups and instability. Pan-Arabists gained strength in the years prior to World War II, and cultural pluralism deteriorated. Nazi propaganda permeated society. The Jewish community never recovered after the 1940 farhud (pogrom) in Baghdad.
While minority communities became detached from the Iraqi mainstream, there was still dynamic political debate. Davis traces the development of the war of ideas between Arab nationalists and communists. Using a wide variety of Arabic sources drawn from field research in Iraqi archives and libraries, Davis traces the newspapers and books that influenced society and politics. He reaches into the roots of intellectual life at the time, even detailing specific coffeehouses where writers would discuss and debate their ideas.
While the 1958 revolution sparked political and civic activity, the 1968 Baathist coup curtailed it. The intellectual chill was not instantaneous, though. Davis examines how the Baathist regime moved to co-opt Iraq's intelligentsia and brainwash its youth. He surveys books, newspapers, literary journals, and even graphic art to show how the Iraqi regime sought to promote Sunni Arab nationalism. A wide array of photographs of everything from models at Iraqi fashion shows to Saddam's monumental architecture help illustrate Davis' arguments.
The chapter on "Memories of State and the Arts of Resistance," is particularly strong. In it, Davis details the subtle academic censorship exerted by the Ministry of Culture. Baathist bureaucrats okayed the publication of lackluster theses on esoteric topics but refused to print award-winning anthropological studies of Iraqi tribes, for these latter acknowledged a diversity that the Baath party did not wish to recognize. Iraq's once rich poetic tradition narrowed into a celebration of Arab nationalism. The survey of Iraqi newspaper content in the 1990s shows how stilted Iraq's once rich discourse had become.
While Memories of State will be of lasting value to academics and historians wishing to understand the evolution and deterioration of Iraq's intelligentsia, its dense academic prose undercuts its utility. Readers are saddled with long asides about contrasting theories of "historical memory," "Gramscian notions of hegemony," and other examples of unnecessary obfuscation.

Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
Summer 2007