Professor Hanna Batatu (1926-2000)

In 2008, CCAS invited prominent scholars of Iraq to reflect on the lessons of Hanna Batatu’s legendary 1978 work, The Old Social Classes and the Revolutionary Movements of Iraq. The end result of that conference is Uncovering Iraq: Trajectories of Disintegration and Transformation, edited by Middle East Report editor Chris Toensing and CCAS editor Mimi Kirk. The book’s seven chapters explore three aspects of Batatu’s scholarship: his contribution to current understandings of Iraqi history (chs. 1 & 2); his categories of analysis as applied to Iraqi sociopolitical affairs (chs. 3, 4, & 5); and his influence (or lack thereof) on portrayals of Iraq by non-academic producers of knowledge (chs. 6 & 7).

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Hanna Batatu and the Historiography of Modern Iraq, by Peter Sluglett

Chapter 2: Social Complexity and National Identity in Hanna Batatu’s Scholarship on Iraq, by Reidar Visser

Chapter 3: A State of Violence: A Sociological Reading of the Battle for Baghdad, by Peter Harling

Chapter 4: Sectarianism, Historical Memory, and the Discourse of Othering: The Mahdi Army, Mafia, Camorra, and ‘Nrdangheta, by Eric Davis

Chapter 5: Debris and Diaspora: Iraqi Culture Now, by Sinan Antoon

Chapter 6: Hanna Batatu and U.S. Government Policy and Perceptions Regarding Iraq, by Wayne White

Chapter 7: Iraq in the American Press, by Chris Toensing

Please contact Mimi Kirk at mek75@georgetown.edu for more information .