Iraq: A History by John Robertson (review)

Since the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, I count a dozen surveys of Iraqi history either published or reprinted, including my own A Documentary History of Modern Iraq (University of Florida Press, 2012). Each covers a broad swath of the country’s troubled past, but the emphasis tends towards interpreting the political chaos and social fragmentation that have marked Iraqi history over the past century. Given the number of recent studies of this country’s history, I admit that I approached John Robertson’s Iraq: A History with some trepidation, fearing it would cover well-trodden ground. In fact, I discovered a fresh and lively discussion of Iraq’s 6,000-year history. From the first signs of sedentary agriculture in 4000 BCE, the area that is now Iraq has provided the world with endless innovations, and the memories of these are kept alive by proud Iraqis in the present day.

Robertson’s thesis is unabashedly infused with political significance. He writes in order to make sure that his Western readership, particularly his American compatriots, understand that “Iraq’s past has played a vital role in shaping the world” (p. 9). Robertson reminds his readers of the intellectual debt the Western world owes to the peoples that populated the area of Iraq throughout history, hoping they will then see past today’s brutal headlines. The banks of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers fostered political and social innovations later adopted in the West, such as systems of writing, urbanization, the rule of law, a monarchical political system, and monotheistic religious belief. And so, the peoples inhabiting the area that would become Iraq legated to the West much of its scientific and political culture. This legacy should temper those quick to condemn this now troubled place as a violent backwater. “Iraq still matters” (p. 9), intones the author. His conviction is clearly expressed and poignantly supported throughout this book.

Readers will find that the history of Iraq is much more than the history of Islamic infighting, and this in and of itself is a refreshing contribution to existing studies. Islam does not appear in this book as a social or political force until halfway through it (p. 165), which facilitates a novel perspective on Iraqi history. The history of this place, after all, goes back thousands of years. Its city Ur, for example, was the birthplace of the biblical patriarch Abraham. The epic Gilgamesh emerged from the Sumerian Empire of Mesopotamia. Hammurabi issued his eponymous code in Babylon, the city where Alexander the Great would later die. Clearly, the history of Iraq is anchored in thousands of years of historical process that predate the seventh-century rise of Islam. In making this point, Robertson deliberately breaks with the standard treatment of the region. “Most general histories of the Middle East,” he notes, “in fact, begin with the Muslim conquest, after a perfunctory chapter or two about ‘geography and environment’ and ‘ancient prelude’” (p. 167). Robertson shows that emergence of Islam as a cultural and political force did not occur in a vacuum, but instead built upon existing monotheistic trends of the previous era, offering to people of the region continuity not change.

Despite this focus on ancient times, Robertson never loses track of his readership’s inherent interest in the present. Calling upon the analysis of Eric Davis, Robertson’s text is filled with interesting asides on contemporary manipulations of the past, showing that the Ba‘thist leader Saddam Husayn brought into play the symbols of Iraq’s past to buttress his authority.¹ Saladin, for example, was born in Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown, and Robertson explains that the dictator deliberately associated himself with this historic figure (p. 298). The seventh-century Battle of Qadisiyya, when Arab Muslims took the area of Iraq from Persian rule, was invoked when Saddam went to war with Iran in 1980 (pp. 181, 198). Saddam also compared the American-led invasion of 2003 to the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1258 (p. 225). And so, readers...