Baghdad Sketches

  baghdad sketches: Baghdad Sketches Freya Stark, 2011
  baghdad sketches: Baghdad Sketches Freya Stark, 1996 In the fall of 1928, thirty-five year-old Freya Stark set out on her first journey to the Middle East. She spent most of the next four years in Iraq and Persia, visiting ancient and medieval sites, and traveling alone through some of the wilder corners of the region.
  baghdad sketches: Baghdad Justin Marozzi, 2014-05-29 In Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood, celebrated young travelwriter-historian Justin Marozzi gives us a many-layered history of one of the world's truly great cities - both its spectacular golden ages and its terrible disasters 'Justin Marozzi is the most brilliant of the new generation of travelwriter-historians' - Sunday Telegraph Over thirteen centuries, Baghdad has enjoyed both cultural and commercial pre-eminence, boasting artistic and intellectual sophistication and an economy once the envy of the world. It was here, in the time of the Caliphs, that the Thousand and One Nights were set. Yet it has also been a city of great hardships, beset by epidemics, famines, floods, and numerous foreign invasions which have brought terrible bloodshed. This is the history of its storytellers and its tyrants, of its philosophers and conquerors. Here, in the first new history of Baghdad in nearly 80 years, Justin Marozzi brings to life the whole tumultuous history of what was once the greatest capital on earth. Justin Marozzi is a Councillor of the Royal Geographic Society and a Senior Research Fellow at Buckingham University. He has broadcast for BBC Radio Four, and regularly contributes to a wide range of publications, including the Financial Times, for which he has worked in Iraq, Afghanistan and Darfur. His previous books include the bestselling Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, a Sunday Telegraph Book of the Year (2004), and The Man Who Invented History: Travels with Herodotus.
  baghdad sketches: A Glimpse at the Travelogues of Baghdad Iman Al-Attar, 2022-09-19 The history of Baghdad in the 18th and 19th centuries had predominantly been written by two groups. The first group is Baghdadi scholars, and the second group is travellers. These two resources complement each other; while the literature of Baghdadi scholars provides insights from inside, travelogues provide observations from outside. By implementing this interlocking method of investigation, we can reach a comprehensive understanding of the history of Baghdad. Having investigated some sources from inside in my previous book; Baghdad: an urban history through the lens of literature, the focus of this book is on travel literature. The history of travelogues throughout different periods of Baghdad’s history is highlighted, with a particular focus on 18th and 19th century travelogues. This period was a critical epoch of change, not just in Baghdad, but across the world. Nevertheless, this book does not intend to provide a documentary of the travellers who visited Baghdad. It is rather an analytical study of the colonial literature in relation to the historiography of Baghdad.
  baghdad sketches: The Last Jews in Baghdad Nissim Rejwan, 2004-10-01 Nissim Rejwan recalls the lost Jewish community of Baghdad, in which he was a child and young man from the 1920s through 1951. He paints a minutely detailed picture of growing up in a barely middle-class family, dealing with a motley assortment of neighbors and landlords, struggling through the local schools, and finally discovering the pleasures of self-education and sexual awakening. Rejwan intertwines his personal story with the story of the cultural renaissance that was flowering in Baghdad during the years of his young manhood, describing how his work as a bookshop manager and a staff writer for the Iraq Times brought him friendships with many of the country's leading intellectual and literary figures.
  baghdad sketches: Passionate Nomad Jane Fletcher Geniesse, 2010-07-21 A New York Times Notable Book • Finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction “Highly readable biography . . . The woman who emerges from these pages is a complex figure—heroic, driven . . . and entirely human.”—Richard Bernstein, The New York Times Passionate Nomad captures the momentous life and times of Freya Stark with precision, compassion, and marvelous detail. Hailed by The Times of London as “the last of the Romantic Travellers” upon her death in 1993, Freya Stark combined unflappable bravery, formidable charm, fearsome intellect, and ferocious ambition to become the twentieth century’s best-known woman traveler. Digging beneath the mythology, Geniesse uncovers a complex, controversial, and quixotic woman whose indomitable spirit was forged by contradictions: a child of privilege, Stark grew up in near poverty; yearning for formal education, she was largely self-taught; longing for love, she consistently focused on the wrong men. Despite these hardships, Stark’s astonishing career spanned more than sixty years, during which she produced twenty-two books that sealed her reputation as a consummate woman of letters. This edition includes a new Epilogue by the author that, citing newly discovered evidence, calls into question the circumstances of Stark’s birth and adds new insight into this adventurous and lively personality. Praise for Passionate Nomad “Passionate Nomad is a work of nonfiction that reads and sings with the drama and lilt of a fine novel. The story of Freya Stark is stunning, inspiring, sad, funny, unique, and moving. Jane Fletcher Geniesse tells it straight, but with a care for delicious detail and a sympathy for the characters that make this a truly special book.”—Jim Lehrer “Passionate Nomad supplies a fascinating individual thread in the tapestry of twentiethcentury Middle Eastern history. . . . [Geniesse] has achieved, in the end, an admirable focus, at once critical and sympathetic. . . . For all Stark’s unresolved contradictions, . . . her distinction as a latter-day woman of letters survives.”—The New York Times Book Review “Compulsively readable . . . [Geniesse] has done a thorough job re-creating the life of a woman many consider to be the last of the great romantic travelers.”—The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
  baghdad sketches: Phenomena Annie Jacobsen, 2017-03-28 The definitive history of the military's decades-long investigation into mental powers and phenomena, from the author of Pulitzer Prize finalist The Pentagon's Brain and international bestseller Area 51. This is a book about a team of scientists and psychics with top secret clearances. For more than forty years, the U.S. government has researched extrasensory perception, using it in attempts to locate hostages, fugitives, secret bases, and downed fighter jets, to divine other nations' secrets, and even to predict future threats to national security. The intelligence agencies and military services involved include CIA, DIA, NSA, DEA, the Navy, Air Force, and Army-and even the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Now, for the first time, New York Times bestselling author Annie Jacobsen tells the story of these radical, controversial programs, using never before seen declassified documents as well as exclusive interviews with, and unprecedented access to, more than fifty of the individuals involved. Speaking on the record, many for the first time, are former CIA and Defense Department scientists, analysts, and program managers, as well as the government psychics themselves. Who did the U.S. government hire for these top secret programs, and how do they explain their military and intelligence work? How do scientists approach such enigmatic subject matter? What interested the government in these supposed powers and does the research continue? Phenomena is a riveting investigation into how far governments will go in the name of national security.
  baghdad sketches: Iraq & The Persian Gulf Naval Intelligence Division, 2014-09-03 First Published in 2005. Developed as a naval guidebook by expert geographers, this work is an excellent introduction to the geology, geography, climate, vegetation, animal life, history, peoples, administration, public health, agriculture, industry, ports and communications of Iraq and the Persian Gulf. The book is written in a clear, straightforward manner, intended for practical use. In it, readers will find a wealth of fascinating information.
  baghdad sketches: Freya Stark Caroline Moorehead, 2014-08-21 Born in Paris 1893, a precocious and tough Freya Stark spent her childhood wondering across Europe, speaking three languages by the time she was five. She became one of the twentieth-century's most remarkable and inspirational women. Renowned for her flamboyant and unorthodox behaviour, Freya was also self-disciplined, courageous and remained fearlessly independent throughout her life. As an explorer she was unconventional, always travelling alone, without money or support. Her expeditions in Persia and the Hadhramaut during the thirties established her reputation not only as a great traveller and writer, but also as a geographer, historian and archaeologist. Caroline Moorehead brilliantly captures Freya's extraordinary and eventful life that was tempered by a constant struggle against ill health and loneliness, in this compelling biography.
  baghdad sketches: Interwar Crossroads Leon Julius Biela, Anna Bundt, 2022-11-07 Studying the entangled histories of the areas conceptualized as Middle Eastern and North Atlantic World in the interwar years is crucial to understanding the two areas' respective and common histories until today. However, many of the manifold connections, exchanges, and entanglements between the areas have not received thorough scholarly attention yet. The contributors to this volume address this by bringing together various innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to the topic. They thereby further the understanding of the two areas' entangled histories and diversify prevailing concepts and narratives. Through this, the volume also offers enriching insights into the global history of the early 20th century.
  baghdad sketches: Dreaming in Arabic Jennifer L. Armstrong, 2024-12-18 Dreaming in Arabic is the story of growing up in a church that preached end-time prophecies that were soon going to overtake the world, starting with God’s people fleeing to a place of safety in Petra, Jordan. Despite each prophecy failing, dates continued to be set for the end of the world. Starting at an archaeological dig site in Israel, the author goes back in history to highlight the times the Holy Land has been conquered and whether this has any relevance for Christians today. A modern memoir about ancient promises and conflicting visions of the Middle East and how history can be very personal.
  baghdad sketches: Handbook of British Travel Writing Barbara Schaff, 2020-09-07 This handbook offers a systematic exploration of current key topics in travel writing studies. It addresses the history, impact, and unique discursive variety of British travel writing by covering some of the most celebrated and canonical authors of the genre as well as lesser known ones in more than thirty close-reading chapters. Combining theoretically informed, astute literary criticism of single texts with the analysis of the circumstances of their production and reception, these chapters offer excellent possibilities for understanding the complexity and cultural relevance of British travel writing.
  baghdad sketches: Great Women Travel Writers Alba Amoia, Bettina Knapp, 2006-06-02 Includes ten contributor's writings on 250 years of women travel writers. Travel is a quest, an escape, a passion. Women explorers and travellers are a special breed. This book covers 22 courageous women who encircled the globe, and boldly crossed international barriers often to encounter the most patriarchal cultures of their time.
  baghdad sketches: In Search Of The First Civilizations Michael Wood, 2013-04-30 Five thousand years ago there began the most momentous revolution in human history. Starting in Mesopotamia, city civilization emerged for the first time on earth, to be followed in Egypt, India, China and the Americas. The ideals of these ancient civilizations still shape the lives of the majority of mankind. In Search of the First Civilizations (previously published as Legacy) asks the intriguing question: what is civilization? Did it mean the same to the Chinese, the Indians and the Greeks? What can the values of the ancient cultures teach us today? And do the ideals of the West - a latecomer to civilization - really have universal validity? In this fascinating historical search, Michael Wood explores these ancient cultures, looking for their essential character and their continuing legacy. A brilliant exploration. Sunday Times Well-written, gorgeous and guaranteed to induce thought... Wood takes great care to put everything in a large historical perspective, which is actually more disturbing than comforting. New York Post
  baghdad sketches: Anderson’s Travel Companion Compiled by Sarah Anderson, 2016-12-05 A selection of the best in travel writing, with both fiction and non-fiction presented together, this companion is for all those who like travelling, like to think about travelling, and who take an interest in their destination. It covers guidebooks as well as books about food, history, art and architecture, religion, outdoor activities, illustrated books, autobiographies, biographies and fiction and lists books both in and out of print. Anderson's Travel Companion is arranged first by continent, then alphabetically by country and then by subject, cross-referenced where necessary. There is a separate section for guidebooks and comprehensive indexes. Sarah Anderson founded the Travel Bookshop in 1979 and is also a journalist and writer on travel subjects. She is known by well-known travel writers such as Michael Palin and Colin Thubron. Michael Palin chose her bookshop as his favourite shop and Colin Thubron and Geoffrey Moorhouse, among others, made suggestions for titles to include in the Travel Companion.
  baghdad sketches: Buying the Night Flight Georgie Anne Geyer, 2011-08-16 In Buying the Night Flight Georgie Anne Geyer, one of the first American women to cover wars abroad, tells of her thrilling rise from cub reporter to foreign correspondent as she made her way into the male-dominated world of journalism. Born from thirty years of reporting experience, Geyer transports the reader to Guatemala, Cuba, Egypt, Russia, and Cambodia, recounting the history and politics, adventure and extremism of the times with rare insight, humor, and passion. Told with a brilliance and dead-on honesty, this book vividly captures the triumphs of a determined and talented young reporter.
  baghdad sketches: Curating Lived Islam in the Muslim World Iftikhar H. Malik, 2021-06-17 Beginning with the medieval period, this book collates and reviews first-hand scholarship on Muslims in the Middle East and South Asia, as noted down by eminent British travellers, sleuths and observers of lived Islam. The book foregrounds the pre-colonial and pre-Orientalist phase and locates the multi-disciplinarity of Britain’s relationship with Muslims over the last millennium to demonstrate a multi-layered interface. Fully sensitive to a gender balance, the book focuses on specially selected individuals and their transformative experiences while living and working among Muslims. Examining the writings of male and female authors including Adelard, Thomas Coryate, Mary Montagu and Fanny Parkes, the book analyses their understanding of Islam. Moreover, the author explores the works of a salient number of representative colonial British women to move away from the imperious wives stereotype and shed light on gender and Islam in Near East and South Asia by illustrating the status of women, tribal hierarchies, historic and architectural sites and regional politics. Going beyond familiar views about colonialism, travel writings and memsahibs without losing sight of the complex relations between Britain and Asian Muslims, this book will be of interest to academics working on British history, Imperial history, the study of religions, Shi’i Islam, Islamic studies, Gender and the Empire and South Asian Studies.
  baghdad sketches: The Renewal of Islamic Law Chibli Mallat, 1993 A study of Muhammad Baqer as-Sadr - an Iraqi scholar whose ideas were influential in the rise of political Islam.
  baghdad sketches: Travelling in Different Skins Dúnlaith Bird, 2012-07-05 Dúnlaith Bird argues that vagabondage - a physical and textual elaboration of gender identity in motion - emerges as a totemic concept in European women's travel writing from 1850. For travellers including Olympe Audouard, Isabella Bird, Isabelle Eberhardt, and Freya Stark,vagabondage is a means of pushing out the physical, geographical, and textual parameters by which 'women' are defined. Travelling in Different Skins explores the negotiations of European women travel writers from 1850-1950 within the traditionally male-oriented discourses of colonialism and Orientalism. Moving from historical overview to close textual reading, it traces a complex web of tacit collusion and gleeful defiance. These women improvise access to the highly gendered 'imaginative geography' of the Orient. Tactics including cross-dressing, commerciality, and the effacement of their male companions are used to carve out a space for their unconventional and often sexually-hybrid constructions. Using a composite theoretical basis of the later critical work of Judith Butler and Edward Said, this comparative study of British and French colonial empires and gender norms draws out the nuances in these travellers' constructions of gender identity. Women travel writers are shown to play an important role in the legacy of sexual experimentation and self-creation in the Orient, traditionally associated with male writers including Gide and Pierre Loti, and now ripe for critical re-evaluation. This study demonstrates how these women use lived experiences of restriction and negotiation to elaborate advanced theories of motion and gender construction, presaging the concerns of twenty-first century feminism and post-colonialism.
  baghdad sketches: Library Catalog of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.). Library, 1980
  baghdad sketches: Empires of Antiquities Billie Melman, 2020-03-31 Empires of Antiquities is a history of the rediscovery of civilizations of the ancient Near East in the imperial order that evolved between the outbreak of the First World War and the 1950s. It explores the ways in which Near Eastern antiquity was redefined and experienced, becoming the subject of new regulation, new modes of knowledge, and international and local politics. A series of globally publicized spectacular archaeological discoveries in Iraq, Egypt, and Palestine, which the book follows, made antiquity visible, palpable and accessible as never before. The new uses of antiquity and its relations to modernity were inseparable from the emergence of the post-war world order, imperial collaboration and collisions, and national aspirations. Empires of Antiquities uniquely combines a history of the internationalization of a new regime of archaeology under the oversight of the League of Nations and its web of institutions, a history of British passions for Near Eastern antiquity, on-the-ground colonial mechanisms and nationalist claims on the past. It points to the centrality of the mandate system, particularly mandates classified A, in Mesopotamia/Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan, formerly governed by the Ottoman Empire, and of Egypt, in a new culture of antiquity. Drawing on an unusually wide range of archives in several countries, as well as on visual and material evidence, the book weaves together imperial, international, and local histories of institutions, people, ideas and objects and offers an entirely new interpretation of the history of archaeological discovery and its connections to empires and modernity.
  baghdad sketches: A Middle East Mosaic Bernard Lewis, 2007-12-18 In times of war and in peace, from the earliest days of the Roman Empire to our own, Westerners have journeyed to the lands of the middle east, bringing back accounts of their adventures and impressions. Yet it was never a one way exchange. From the first Arab embassy to the Vikings in the 9th century to the internet musings of the Taliban, A Middle East Mosaic collects a rich, boisterous literature of cultural exchange. We see the American Revolution through the eyes of a Moroccan Ambassador and the French Revolution through a series of Imperial Ottoman proclamations. We find surprising portraits of Napoleon (a brigand chief), TE Lawrence and Ataturk. We learn what George Washington and Machiavelli through t of Turkish politics and hear Flaubert and Thackeray rail against eastern crime and punishment. We peer into Voltaire's business correspondence and follow the footsteps of Mark Twain, Richard Burton, Gertrude Bell and Ibn Battutta, the Marco Polo of the east. Great discoveries are recorded - an Egyptian Ambassador is introduced to electricity and dismisses the spectacle as frankish trickery; another pronounces the invention of a secure mail system most useful for assignations. We enter the harem with a 16th century organ maker and emerge with Ottoman reform. It was not until the sixteenth century that the first middle eastern rulers entered into diplomatic relations with European rulers, but trade often precede diplomatic relations. Business men from the days of the crusades against Saladin to the oil prospecting of Samuel Cox and his descendents have seen great possibilities in the markets of the middle east. And throughout the centuries we have been united by war. We witness the outbreak of the Crimean war with Karl Marx and enter Egypt with Napoleon. We observe Arab customs with George Patton and visit Baghdad and Cairo with George F. Kennan in the second world war. When Usama bin Ladin rails against Jews and crusaders occupying the holy land, he is rehearsing a grievance with a long history. This symphony of voices, full of wit and wisdom, spite and wonder, suspicion, befuddlement and occasional insight, is ordered and explained by our foremost living historian of the middle east. The fruit of a lifetime of scholarship and erudition, A Middle East Mosaic is a dazzling capstone to a brilliant career. In a spirited reappraisal of western views of the east and eastern views of the west over the last two thousand years, Bernard Lewis gives us a brilliant over-view of 2,000 years of commerce, diplomacy, war and exploration. This book is a delight, a treasury of stories drawn from letters, diaries and histories, but also from unpublished archives and previously untranslated accounts. Diplomats and interpreters, slaves, soldiers, pilgrims and missionaries, princes and spies, businessmen, doctors and priests all pour forth their stories of the people and events that shaped history. A Middle East Mosaic cannot fail to appeal to anyone with an appetite for history and a curiosity about the vagaries of cultural exchange.
  baghdad sketches: The Life and Times of Charles R. Crane, 1858–1939 Norman E. Saul, 2012-12-21 Charles R. Crane acquired his appreciation for Russian culture and life through travel in the country, making a total of twenty-four trips to Russia. Crane developed friendships and professional relationships with many prominent Russians in political, cultural, and artistic spheres. Crane spent a considerable amount of his own time and resources in his attempts to educate Americans about the Russian people. By studying this unusual man, Norman E. Saul explores the world in which he lived and traveled. The relationship between America and Russia has always been a complex and fascinating one, and Saul shines light on a pivotal period in that relationship.
  baghdad sketches: Not So Innocent Abroad Ulrike Brisson, Bernard Schweizer, 2009-10-02 With its specific focus on the connections between politics, travel, and travel writing, Not So Innocent Abroad offers a fresh approach to the study of travel literature. The authors make clear that travel and travel writing are never an “innocent” enterprise; rather, journeying always occurs within political systems, and travel writing either reflects the traveler’s political stance, includes political aspects of foreign cultures, or directly or indirectly influences political decisions. In contrast to most scholarly publications that primarily focus on travel literature of former colonial nations, this volume includes a broader range of travelogues depicting cultures worldwide, spanning from the eighteenth to the twenty-first century. It thus offers with its comparative approach not only a geographically wide selection but also an historical dimension to the political aspects of travel writing. Although most travel literature generally has followed the Horatian principle to instruct and delight the armchair traveler, the authors of this volume clearly address the broader political implications of travel and travel writing within networks of “naked” politics, such as international or interior conflicts, emigration laws, or national propaganda. They also reveal how insidiously political messages are dissimulated through travel writing.
  baghdad sketches: An Anthology of Women's Travel Writings Shirley Foster, Sara Mills, 2002 This anthology aims to challenge stereotypes of women travellers. Rather than simply presenting writings by Victorian women who travelled bravely around the world disregarding social convention and danger, the editors present a range of writing and possible ways of being a woman traveller. As well as the 'eccentric' woman traveller, the editors have included writings by those who might be seen as failed travellers, cautious and conventional travellers and those who did not conform to the adventurous heroine stereotype. Because travelling as a woman and writing as a woman presents the author with a number of textual problems which must be negotiated, Foster and Mills have chosen to include writings which confronted these problems and which resolved them (or did not resolve them) in different ways.These textual problems include the depiction of other women, the representation of spatial relations, the negotiations undertaken in relation to the adventure heroine narrative and character and the position taken by the author in relation to the representation of knowledge. These issues are all crucial in relation to travel writing by women , and the women, whose writing has been collected together in this anthology have made bold decisions in relation to them.
  baghdad sketches: Library Catalog of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Supplement Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.). Library, 1962
  baghdad sketches: Iraq Between the Two World Wars Reeva Spector Simon, 2004-06-09 Why did a group from the Iraqi army seize control of the government and wage a disastrous war against Great Britain, rejecting British and liberal values for those of a militaristic Germany? What impact did these actions have on the thirty-year regime of Saddam Hussein? Departing from previous studies explaining modern Iraqi history in terms of class theory, Reeva Simon shows that cultural and ideological factors played an equal, if not more important, role in shaping events. In 1921 the British created Iraq, and an entourage of ex-Ottoman army officers, the Sharifians, became the new ruling elite. Simon contends that this elite, returning to an Iraq made up of different ethnic, religious, and social groups, had to weld these disparate elements into a nation. Pan-Arabism was to be the new ideological source of unity and loyalty. Schools and the army became the means through which to implant it, and a series of military coups gave the officers the chance to act in its name. The result was an abortive revolt against Britain in 1941. And the legacy of the revolt is still apparent in the next two generations of Iraqi officers that led to the regime of Saddam Hussein. This updated edition locates the sources of Iraqi nationalism in the experience of these ex-Ottoman army officers who used the emergent pan-Arabism to weld a disparate population into a nation. Simon shows that the relationships forged between Iraqi officers and Germans in Istanbul before WWI left deep legacies that go a long way toward explaining the disastrous war against Great Britain in 1941, the rejection of liberal values, the revolution of 1958 in which the military finally seized power, and the outlook of the leadership recently overthrown by American and British armies.
  baghdad sketches: Postcolonialism and Science Fiction J. Langer, 2011-12-15 Using close readings and thematic studies of contemporary science fiction and postcolonial theory, ranging from discussions of Japanese and Canadian science fiction to a deconstruction of race and (post)colonialism in World of Warcraft, This book is the first comprehensive study of the complex and developing relationship between the two areas.
  baghdad sketches: Justice Interrupted Elizabeth F. Thompson, 2013-04-15 The Arab Spring uprising of 2011 is portrayed as a dawn of democracy in the region. But the revolutionaries were—and saw themselves as—heirs to a centuries-long struggle for just government and the rule of law. In Justice Interrupted we see the complex lineage of political idealism, reform, and violence that informs today’s Middle East.
  baghdad sketches: Day of Honey Annia Ciezadlo, 2012-02-14 Originally published in hardcover in 2011.
  baghdad sketches: In-between Two Worlds Béatrice Bijon, Gérard Gacon, 2009 Fourteen essays provide a challenging outlook on narratives by women explorers and travellers from five different continents, spanning nearly one century from 1850 to 1945. The map thus drawn enables one to revisit, restore, and reassess the content and the originality of these narratives by women. The essays are relevant to the fields of travel writing and gender studies, and all draw from referential contemporary theoretical and critical works (Michel Foucault, Homi Bhabha, Edward Said, Roland Barthes, Michel de Certeau, Gilles Deleuze, Sara Mills, Kristi Siegel, and Jane Robinson). The main interest and originality of the volume result from the perspectives adopted by the different authors. The text-oriented analyses rely on close reading, thus definitely providing accurate and perceptive critical insights into the narratives. Such perspective precludes erasing the differential features characterizing each geographical space and each travelling subject. It also moves away from any temptation at creating a naturalized mythical image of these women.
  baghdad sketches: Caught in a Dream Muhammed Al Da’mi, 2013-04-30 Caught in a Dream is based on the hypothesis that the Middle East is currently a problematic region in so far as world peace and regional stability are in question. It is problematic intrinsically because it is hooked on an ancestral dream on both the governmental and popular levels. Middle-Eastern medievalism is instrumental for the survival of undemocratic forms of government; and it guaranties a backward public opinion that complements the magic circle of the illusive vision through the demagoguery of the prevailing radical Islamic groups which are now fuelled and maintained by the petrodollar the industrial world provides in return for oil. To verify the above hypothesis, Professor Al Dami examines nine demonstrative paradoxes which crystallize the obsessive and blinding medievalism of this `region of paradox through discussions of the geographically loose and derogatory denomination of the `Middle East, the durable residual impact of Ottoman legacy with its issues, the failure of constant and accumulative progress due to intermittent governmental change, the incongruity between state authority and the cultural elite, the toleration of despotism as a result of resilient medieval relationships and social structures, the futility of progressive change attempted by oppositions which carry identical reactionary values, the dilemma of the educational systems, the American involvement in Iraq and the region which stimulated cultural responses of revealing meaning. An Essay on Mesopotamianism demonstrates the continuity of the Western approaches to Iraq as a model case of regional significance.
  baghdad sketches: The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing Peter Hulme, Tim Youngs, 2002-11-21 The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing brings together specialists from anthropology, history, literary and cultural studies to offer a broad and vibrant introduction to travel writing in English between 1500 and the present. This comprehensive introduction to the subject features specially commissioned contributions, including six essays surveying the period's travel writing; a further six focusing on geographical areas of particular interest - Arabia, the Amazon, Tahiti, Ireland, Calcutta, the Congo and California; and three final chapters analysing some of the theoretical and cultural dimensions to this enigmatic and influential genre of writing. Several invaluable tools are also provided, including an extensive list of further reading, and a detailed five-hundred year chronology listing important events and publications. This volume will be of interest to teachers and students alike.
  baghdad sketches: Iraq Liora Lukitz, 2005-07-05 The 1990-1991 crisis in the Middle East and the disturbances that followed, threw the deep-seated divisions within the Iraqi population into focus. This book examines the complexities of the internal cultural, political and religious conflict within the modern state of Iraq.
  baghdad sketches: Improbable Women William Woods Cotterman, 2013-10-22 Zenobia was the third-century Syrian queen who rebelled against Roman rule. Before Emperor Aurelian prevailed against her forces, she had seized almost one-third of the Roman Empire. Today, her legend attracts thousands of visitors to her capital, Palmyra, one of the great ruined cities of the ancient world. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, during the time of Ottoman rule, travel to the Middle East was almost impossible for Westerners. That did not stop five daring women from abandoning their conventional lives and venturing into the heart of this inhospitable region. Improbable Women explores the lives of Hester Stanhope, Jane Digby, Isabel Burton, Gertrude Bell, and Freya Stark, narrating the story of each woman’s pilgrimage to Palmyra to pay homage to the warrior queen. Although the women lived in different time periods, ranging from the eighteenth century to the mid–twentieth century, they all had middle- to upper-class British backgrounds and overcame great societal pressures to pursue their independence. Cotterman situates their lives against a backdrop of the Middle Eastern history that was the setting for their adventures. Divided into six sections, one devoted to Zenobia and one on each of the five women, Improbable Women is a fascinating glimpse into the experiences and characters of these intelligent, open-minded, and free-spirited explorers.
  baghdad sketches: Iraq Then and Now Karen Dabrowska, Geoff Hann, 2008 Unlike other publications since the downfall of Saddam's regime, Iraq: Then & Now traces the history of the country from ancient times until the present. Supplementary boxes, many written by Iraqis themselves, reflect on life today as compared with life in Saddam's Iraq and even earlier, describing their experiences, hopes, fears, ambitions and visions for the future.The book self-consciously avoids making any judgement on the political debate surrounding the 2003 war and subsequent occupation; instead it presents the varying views, and offers a rounded, balanced picture.Published to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the change, this guide to the country and its people, provides information on Iraq's culture and archaeology, the south, Baghdad and the Sunni Triangle. The northern region of Iraqi Kurdistan stands apart as a success story and the travel appendix provides essential information for the increasing numbers of visitors to this region.
  baghdad sketches: Travellers to the Middle East from Burckhardt to Thesiger Geoffrey P. Nash, 2009-07-01 ‘Travellers to the Middle East from Burkhardt to Thesiger’ is a compendious anthology of travellers' writings produced during the high tide of Britain’s involvement in the Middle East. The anthology contains extracts from many of the canonical travel texts of the period, including passages by T. E. Lawrence, Gertrude Bell and Robert Byron, as well as many more extracts from both female and male writers. The anthology is also enlivened by the broad geographical span covered, including descriptions of territories in the Ottoman Empire, Egypt, Arabia and Persia.
  baghdad sketches: Readings in Oriental Literature Jalal Uddin Khan, 2015-02-05 Readings in Oriental Literature: Arabian, Indian, and Islamic is an up-to-date elucidation of some diverse and discrete, yet common and classic, subjects and authors, and the distinctive oriental elements present in them. The book, composed of fourteen essays, includes ancient Arabian poetry; the Arabian Nights; the Arabian desert; the Arabian influence on Melville; Shelley’s Orientalia; Coleridge’s Kubla Khan; the influence of English Romantics on the Bengali Tagore; Bangladesh’s national anthem, and her exiled daughter Taslima Nasreen; the Victorian reaction to British India; religious diversity and Islam in the West; the Muslim East in English literature; and reading literature from an Islamic point of view. Marked by an originality of approach and a freshness and simplicity, the book takes note of contemporary theoretical, interdisciplinary and cultural discourse drawn from literature, history, politics and religion as necessary. However, it is far from being unnecessarily weighed down by the loaded clichés, oft-repeated jargon and overused euphemisms of modern literary or critical theory. The result is, regardless of its specialized treatment of otherwise commonplace or well-known texts or topics, that the overall discussion is as lucid, introductory and expository as it is deep and scholarly, making the book accessible and understandable to non-specialist readers, in addition to specialist researchers and academics.
  baghdad sketches: The Economics of the Indian Ocean Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century W. G. Clarence-Smith, 1989 First Published in 1989. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
  baghdad sketches: Literature of Travel and Exploration Jennifer Speake, 2014-05-12 Containing more than 600 entries, this valuable resource presents all aspects of travel writing. There are entries on places and routes (Afghanistan, Black Sea, Egypt, Gobi Desert, Hawaii, Himalayas, Italy, Northwest Passage, Samarkand, Silk Route, Timbuktu), writers (Isabella Bird, Ibn Battuta, Bruce Chatwin, Gustave Flaubert, Mary Kingsley, Walter Ralegh, Wilfrid Thesiger), methods of transport and types of journey (balloon, camel, grand tour, hunting and big game expeditions, pilgrimage, space travel and exploration), genres (buccaneer narratives, guidebooks, New World chronicles, postcards), companies and societies (East India Company, Royal Geographical Society, Society of Dilettanti), and issues and themes (censorship, exile, orientalism, and tourism). For a full list of entries and contributors, a generous selection of sample entries, and more, visit the Literature of Travel and Exploration: An Encyclopedia website.
Baghdad - Wikipedia
Spanning an area of approximately 673 square kilometres (260 sq mi), Baghdad is the capital of its governorate and serves as Iraq's political, economic, …

Baghdad | History, Population, Map, & Facts | Britannica
5 days ago · Baghdad, city, capital of Iraq and capital of Baghdad governorate, central Iraq. Its location, on the Tigris River about 330 miles …

The 10 Best Things to do in Baghdad, the Capital of Iraq
Planning to travel to Baghdad as part of your greater Iraq itinerary? Well, look no further, I’ll give you all the details to help you plan your trip and get the …

Baghdad - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclope…
Baghdad (Arabic: بغداد, transliterated Baghdād) is the capital city and largest city in Iraq. It is the second-largest city in Southwest Asia after Tehran. It is …

Baghdad - New World Encyclopedia
Baghdad (Arabic: بغداد Baġdād) is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, which it is also coterminous with. With a municipal …

Baghdad - Wikipedia
Spanning an area of approximately 673 square kilometres (260 sq mi), Baghdad is the capital of its governorate and serves as Iraq's political, economic, and cultural hub. Founded in 762 AD …

Baghdad | History, Population, Map, & Facts | Britannica
5 days ago · Baghdad, city, capital of Iraq and capital of Baghdad governorate, central Iraq. Its location, on the Tigris River about 330 miles (530 km) from the headwaters of the Persian Gulf, …

The 10 Best Things to do in Baghdad, the Capital of Iraq
Planning to travel to Baghdad as part of your greater Iraq itinerary? Well, look no further, I’ll give you all the details to help you plan your trip and get the most out of your visit to Baghdad. …

Baghdad - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Baghdad (Arabic: بغداد, transliterated Baghdād) is the capital city and largest city in Iraq. It is the second-largest city in Southwest Asia after Tehran. It is the second-largest city in the Arab …

Baghdad - New World Encyclopedia
Baghdad (Arabic: بغداد Baġdād) is the capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, which it is also coterminous with. With a municipal population estimated at 7,000,000, it is the largest city in …

Baghdad - Wikiwand
Founded in 762 AD by Al-Mansur, Baghdad was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate and became its most notable development project. The city evolved into a cultural and intellectual center of …

14 Best Things to do in Baghdad, Iraq (2025) - Laure Wanders
May 29, 2025 · Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, and this was the first place I visited in this country. It’s a city I really love, and there are plenty of beautiful places to visit here. This being said, …

48 Facts About BAGHDAD
Jul 1, 2023 · Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq, holds a rich historical and cultural significance that spans over centuries. From its early beginnings as a small settlement on the banks of the …

The founding of Baghdad - Smarthistory
Baghdad is well-known today as the capital of Iraq, but the city is over one thousand years old. Part of what makes this history so fascinating is that no traces of the city’s original foundation …

U.S. prepares to move nonessential personnel from Baghdad …
5 days ago · The State Department said it has ordered the departure of all nonessential personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad based on its latest review and a commitment “to keeping …